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JAPANESE EXPANSION AND 
AMERICAN POLICIES 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NXW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MBLBOURNB 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



JAPANESE EXPANSION AND 
AMERICAN POLICIES 



BY 



JAMES FRANCIS ABBOTT, Ph.D. 

SOMETIME INSTRUCTOR IN THE IMPERIAL 
JAPANESE NAVAL ACADEMY 



SMCOND MDITION 



Nno fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1916 

'All rights reserved 






COPTBIQHT, 1916, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and printed. Published January, 1916. 
Second edition September, 1916. 



P^X^/ 



DEFACE 

In this little book, I have attempted to give the facts 
upon which I base my opinion that war between Japan 
and America during the present generation is a most 
unlikely contingency. The fact that such a war is not 
an impossibility is the chief reason why the American 
people should inform themselves thoroughly regarding 
Japan and our relations with that Empire. For if war 
comes, it will be largely our own fault. 

Americans know that in 19 14 the absence of any 
personal animosity whatever between the different peo- 
ples of warring Europe had no weight in preventing 
the great war. And in consequence they are little 
inclined to consider the long historic friendship be- 
tween Japan and America from any other than a cyn- 
ical viewpoint. Accordingly, while giving due weight 
to this, so to speak, academic factor and, in particular, 
to the prime necessity, on our part, of cultivating such 
a Japanese friendship, I have tried to base my argu- 
ment upon the more concrete and matter-of-fact aspects 
of the case. 

The first three chapters I have devoted to a brief 



PREFACE 

historic resume, in order that the reader may orient 
himself with respect to the whole problem. The next 
four chapters deal with the material upon which is 
based the central conclusion of the book — that war 
with America would be national Sulicide for Japan. 
The last two chapters are an appeal to Americans to 
recognize Japan's aspirations as an Oriental power, in 
the belief that it will be to our own advantage to do so. 

J. F. A. 
Washington University, 
St. Louis, Mo., 

October, 1915. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Background ., . i 

CHAPTER II 
Japan on Probation .... .1 :.i t.i » n 

CHAPTER III 
Japan Comes of Age w w > 39 

CHAPTER IV 

America, Japan, and the Philippines .; « ^ w 75 

CHAPTER V 
Japan's Economic Evolution . . . . .i . 107 

CHAPTER VI 
The "Yellow Peril" IN A "White Man's Country" . 143 

CHAPTER VII 
The Chances of War . . . • • ' • ,.. . i94 

CHAPTER VIII 

Japan's Dilemma 215 

vvii 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

The Monroe Doctrine East and West . . .1 . 23s 

CHAPTER X 

Some Guesses as to the Future ,. . <« ,., . 248 



JAPANESE EXPANSION AND 
AMERICAN POLICIES 



JAPANESE EXPANSION AND 
AMERICAN POLICIES 

CHAPTER I 

THE BACKGROUND 

" Japan will make China a vassal and will militarize 
its millions. Then it will be for your country [America] 
to look out. Admiral Togo once said to a European, 
* Next Will come a general European war, then will 
come a great war in which my rac§ will be against 
yours.* " 

Such were the statements credited in the press last 

December to Admiral von Tirpitz, the chief of the 

German navy. It is unlikely that Admiral von Tirpitz 

said this; it is highly improbable that Admiral Togo 

did. Yet, in a way, it does not make any difference 

whether they did or not. So long as such statements 

are published periodically all over America and so long 

as hundreds of thousands of readers never dream of 

questioning their accuracy or authenticity they might 

as well be true as otherwise. 

I 



> 



2 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Repeatedly during the past ten years Have similar 
remarks been made and similar fears been expressed. 
And not always so crudely, nor through the channel of 
an anonymous newspaper reporter. Public men, both 
in Congress and elsewhere, have essayed the role of 
Cassandra, in season and out. Bankers, globe-trotters, 
merchants, and editors have enlightened us with their 
views until we have reached a state of mind in which the 
notion that " we are going to have trouble in the Pacific 
one of these days" has become almost an obsession. 
Said the Hon. James R. Mann of Illinois in the House 
of Representatives October i, 1914:^ "We who are 
legislating now, who do not bear in mind the inevitable 
conflict, commercial or otherwise, which we will meet in 
the Far East, have forgotten the principles that ought 
primarily to actuate us. [Applause.] I have no doubt 
that it is as certain as that the sun will rise tomorrow 
morning that a conflict will come between the Far East 
and the Far West across the Pacific Ocean ; all of that 
which has taken place in the world during the history of 
the human race up to now teaches us that the avoidance 
of this conflict is impossible. I hope that the war will 
not come ; I hope that there will be no conflict of arms. 
But I have little faith that in this world of ours people 
and races are able to meet in competition for a long 
1 Congressional Record, 63d Congress, p. 17466. 



THE BACKGROUND 3 

period of time without an armed conflict. A fight for 
commercial supremacy in the end leads to a fight with 
arms because that is the final arbiter among Nations. 
iWe command the Pacific Ocean today with the land that 
we have on this side, with the islands which we possess 
in the sea and with the Philippines on the other side. 
Will we surrender our command? I say no, never."y 
[Applause.] 

A few years earlier Mr. Hobson said on the floor of 
the same chamber : ^ " We are short on providing equi- 
librium in the Atlantic and we have not a single battle- 
ship in the Pacific and our relative naval strength is 
steadily declining. War is therefore a physical cer- 
tainty." ** I will tell you frankly that in my judgment 
you can count almost on the fingers of your two hands 
twice around, the number of months. In my judgment 
war will come before the Panama canal is completed ! " 

" Ever since this Nation went into the Hawaiian Is- 
lands the Japanese nation served notice that they would 
never acquiesce. Ever since 1898 when we went into 
the Philippines, and Japan asked us to let her go in there 
with us and we refused; ever since her citizens have 
come to this country in great numbers and our people, 
following the natural law of segregation of races, have 
not given them the treatment that they thought they 
1 Congressional Record, Feb. 20, 1911, p. 2989. 



4 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

ought to have, they have been preparing for war. . . . 
I repeat, in my judgment, war is inevitable and not far 
off. ... It will be humiliating, of course, for us to 
see the Philippine Islands occupied practically without 
a struggle. All we can hope to do there will be to hold 
out at Corregidor. Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, the Aleutian 
Islands, Alaska, and I have already mentioned Panama, 
San Francisco and the Puget Sound region, the whole 
Pacific Coast will be occupied without serious opposi- 
tion on our part." 

The prospect of a hostile nation "occupying" a 
stretch of coast line (with its hinterland) 7000 miles 
long and 5000 miles from her home base, to say nothing 
of the Philippines 1000 miles away in a different direc- 
tion, is sufficiently startling, but more than one writer has 
pointed out precisely how it is to be done. One of the 
most detailed of these programs is that of Homer Lea's 
extraordinary book, " The Valour of Ignorance." ^ But 
military men also have discussed the invasion of Cali- 
fornia so often that a share of the public has grown to 
accept it as an inevitable coming event. 

*Not the least extraordinary feature of Lea's work is the ap- 
parent seriousness with which it has been considered. William 
James, Norman Angell, and others have discussed his theses as if 
they represented the opinions of an expert militarist. As a mat- 
ter of fact " General " Lea was an adventurer who never had any 
real position in China nor any real military training. 



THE BACKGROUND 5 

On October i8, 1912, General Leonard Wood is re- 
ported to have stated that it would be " very easy for 
an enemy to land in force in San Francisco unless we 
had a west-coast army of 450,000 men." (The regular 
United States army today is between 80,000 and 85,000 
men, and England had but 250,000 men at the outbreak 
of the European war of 19 14.) Of course such an in- 
vading army could not be other than Japanese. Says 
another expert : ^ " If 200,000 fighting men of any first- 
class hostile power should be landed on our Pacific 
Coast tonight, we should have no course save regret- 
fully to hand over to a foreign nation the rich Empire 
west of the Rockies, with its cities, its harbors, and the 
wealth of its valleys and mountains." 

Now the American of influence is a hard-headed man 
of affairs, endowed with a sense of humor and not given 
to panic. He has taken the dire prophecies with a 
grain of salt. When the Panama canal was finished 
without a Japanese war, he recalled Mr. Hobson and 
smiled. 

For many years we have grown accustomed to proph- 
ecies of wars, particularly of the certainty of war in 
Europe. We have treated them all in the same tolerant 
fashion. We are an optimistic people and not easily 
alarmed. We thought that Europe had too much to 
1 Wheeler, "Are We Ready?" New York, 1915. 



6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

lose by war, that European nations were too closely knit 
together, that the spirit of socialism was too strong, 
that we had grown too wise to make a wreck of our 
civilization, that the bankers would not furnish the 
money, etc. 

Then came the cataclysm of August, 19 14, and when 
we had recovered our senses, we began to recall the 
prophecies of the past. We read von Bernhardi's book 
and realized that common sense has its limitations when 
it comes to the judging of foreign politics. We reread 
books and articles that had vociferously predicted the 
European conflict and realized that the prophet for once 
had come into his own. 

And now that the first shock has passed and we have 
grown somewhat accustomed to the incredible situation 
across the Atlantic, we recall once more the foretellings 
of coming war in the other direction and our self-com- 
placency is a bit shaken. After all, may there not be 
something in it? If we were all wrong in smiling away 
the predictions of the European debacle, are we all right 
in disregarding those of a coming American- Japanese 
conflict? The man who is in the presence of an earth- ' 
quake loses his confidence in the stability of all things 
terrestrial. 

In spite of our skepticism, the constant reiteration of 
the idea has left its mark. Subconsciously we have 



THE BACKGROUND 7 

stored away in the back of our minds tags and ends of 
anti- Japanese statements, the while we have repudiated 
the conclusions based upon them. There is no question 
but that as a nation our former rather sentimental 
friendship toward the Sunrise Kingdom has cooled. 
Not knowing the best, we suspect the worst, and 
the background for a national sentiment is slowly 
crystallizing. 

We might regain some peace of mind if we were 
careful to sort out from among the predictions those 
which hold a Japanese war to be inevitable from 
those which hold such a one to be merely probable 
or possible. 

The writer does not think such a war is probable, but 
that is a purely personal opinion, worth only what it will 
bring. That such a war is possible cannot be questioned. 
Anything is possible in international politics. All 
wars have an economic basis, but most of them have a 
sentimental inception. Hardly a more striking example 
could be found than our own most recent conflict with 
Spain. Whether sooner or later we should have drifted 
into war in 1898 is not worth discussing. What did 
plunge us into war precipitately was the blowing up 
of the Maine. And the wave of unreasoning passion 
that swept over the United States took no heed of cir- 
cumstances nor of consequences. 



8 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Now if during some racial controversy in California, 
such as might attend the passage of a new and drastic 
alien land law, after the press of both countries had been 
filled with acrimonious discussions, a Japanese cruiser 
should be anchored in San Francisco harbor, or an 
American man-of-war in Yokohama harbor, and either 
should be blown up, — no matter from what cause, — 
war would not only be possible but very likely inevitable. 
And this, in spite of the fact that the explosion might 
be entirely accidental. Such an accident, or some other 
of the same sort, might happen at any time, and happen- 
ing by chance at a critical time, might have the direst 
consequences. Yet change the scene a little. Suppose 
that such a thing should happen to either a Japanese 
or an American warship in the harbor of Buenos Ay res. 
.War with Argentine on account of it, in the absence of 
any evidence of hostility, would be absurd. And why ? 
Because there would be lacking the background of sus- 
picion and irritation which gives the mob-mind a chance 
to coalesce and overwhelm the rational thought and 
judgment of a nation. 

Now it is precisely the constant reiteration of fears 
and suspicions of a foreign nation, of speculations as to 
her designs upon us and of anxiety as to the future, that 
spins the tissue of such a background. Nothing is 
harder to confute than vague accusations and aspersions 



THE BACKGROUND 9 

of motives. Nothing is more persistent than a false- 
hood that is welcomed by the hearer.^ The innocent 
victim of a libel discovers that no amount of damages 
will compensate him or entirely wipe out the memory 
of the falsehood in the minds of his fellows. We have 
found it necessary to provide a libel law to protect the 
individual. Let us hope that the time will come when 
libels upon nations may be brought to some sort of an 
international bar of justice. The old English law appli- 
cable to sovereigns stated, " The greater the truth, the 
greater the libel." Whatever opinion we may have of 
that with regard to individuals, it is worthy of con- 
sideration in the present case. Suppose that we have 
grievances and that Japan has also. Nations are no 
more perfect than the people that compose them. Let 
us not talk about them too much. We have our ap- 
pointed official representatives upon whose shoulders 
rests the responsibility. 

lA shining example is. the oft-repeated statement that the 
Japanese are so dishonest that they cannot trust one another to 
handle bank funds, but are forced to employ the more trustworthy 
Chinese. As a matter of fact Chinese are employed to a very 
limited extent in Japanese banks and then, not because of their 
superior honesty, but because they are skilled, through long ex- 
perience, in detecting the multitude of counterfeit coins that circu- 
late through the Orient, 

The great majority of Chinese who are observed by travelers in 
Japan to be employed in banks are not the employees of Japanese 
banks at all, but are the employees of Chinese and other foreign 
banks. 



no JAPANESE EXPANSION 

I would not favor a muzzled press nor a blind com- 
placency and an indifference to what goes on in the 
world, nor should I care to see our national interests 
flouted nor our national pride humiliated. But at least, 
let us save our excitement for what does happen, not 
what we fear might happen. And let us allow the dust 
cloud of suspicion to settle instead of constantly stirring 
it up. 

Wise old Francis Bacon said, long ago,^ "There is 
nothing that makes a man suspect much more than to 
know little; and therefore men should remedy suspi- 
cion by procuring to know more and not to keep their 
suspicions in smother." 

Americans are little given to keeping " their suspicions 
in smother," but the remedy of "procuring to know 
more " is open to all. And nothing is more apt to dissi- 
pate the cloud of war or render conflict unlikely. Na- 
tions that know one another well are much less likely 
to gtt to fighting than if the reverse is true. And the 
cost of a battleship would pay for much national 
education. 

1 Essays, XXXI, " On Suspicion." 



CHAPTER II 

JAPAN ON PROBATION 

The earliest inhabitants of Japan, according to the 
archaeologists, were a race of pygmies perhaps related 
to the Philippine Nigritos, who lived in caves or pits 
in the ground and are known in Japanese (or rather 
Ainu), as Koropokguru. These were succeeded by a 
fierce and warlike, very hairy race, known nowadays as 
Ainu, who occupied the main island until after the begin- 
ning of the Christian era. The Ainu never got beyond 
the stone age nor achieved a written language. 

About the fifth century B.C. there came an entirely 
alien race, or rather two of them, in two migrations. 
One of these migrations was by way of the northwest 
and the immigrants were Mongolian or Turanian. The 
other was by way of the south, originating doubtless 
from India and hence of Aryan origin, although without 
question mixed with Malay and other elements on the 
way. These two streams, almost as unlike in racial 
characteristics and physiognomy as Italians and North 
Germans are unlike, have nevertheless mingled together 
in harmony, and constitute the Japanese people we know 

IX 



12 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

today. On the other hand, inherent racial prejudice 
has prevented intermarriage, and the different types are 
today very obvious to the casual observer. The Mon- 
golian element outnumbers the other, twenty to one, 
and constitute the heimin or common people. The 
southern element is the ruling caste and has been for 
centuries. Its members are known as shizoku (samurai) 
or gentry. The officials of modern Japan, the politi- 
cians, the officers of the army and navy, the educated 
classes generally, who represent Japan to the world and 
absolutely control her internal and foreign affairs, — 
these are mostly all shisoku. The farmers, laborers, 
coolies, and incidentally the bulk of Japanese emigrants 
to other countries, are heimin. The gulf between these 
classes, although perhaps not recognized officially, is 
certainly recognized socially, and the distinction between 
the two is never lost in the Japanese mind. For Ameri- 
cans to fail to make this same distinction (and most 
of them do so fail) inevitably creates confusion of mind 
and judgment. The resident of Boston, whose acquaint- 
ance with the Japanese is confined to students and 
officials, quite misapprehends the point of view of the 
Calif ornian, whose acquaintance with them is confined 
in the main to members of the heimin class. Each 
thinks the attitude of the other is perverse. In Japan 
the very language takes account of the difference. For 



JAPAN ON PROBATION I3 

an ordinary laborer to address a gentleman with the same 
personal pronouns and verbal conjugations that the 
latter does him would be the height of calculated insult. 
This caste distinction is largely a relic of feudalism, and 
there are many such relics persisting in the modern 
Japanese social system. It is gradually breaking down 
today with the rise of the commercial middle class, but 
nevertheless it is still a powerful factor in Japanese 
life. 

The incoming Japanese found the Ainu occupying 
the land and disputing their advance. The presence of 
a common foe welded the invaders together into a na- 
tion. The Ainu were gradually driven north, until 
today only a few hundred of them remain in the north- 
ernmost island of Hokkaidd. 

Chinese missionaries introduced the Chinese written 
language, art, and culture about the sixth century, and 
the Island Kingdom flourished under the rule of the 
Mikados. Japan at this time was an absolute mon- 
archy. Early in Japanese history the absolutism of the 
Emperor began to crumble and various powerful fami- 
lies occupied the role of "king-maker." Toward the 
close of the twelfth century a feudal system similar to 
that of Europe appeared. The actual rule was then 
usurped by subordinates who with the title of Shogun 
held sway until 1868. The real Emperor was never 



14 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

actually done away with, but was kept a helpless prisoner 
in Kyoto while the Shoguns ruled in Yedo (the modern 
Tokyo). 

'During the eight centuries of feudalism Japan was 
divided up into fiefs, each ruled by a clan chief called 
the daimyo (literally, "great name"). The daimyd 
owed allegiance to the Shogun alone. Within their 
own borders they were supreme, like the Barons of 
Europe, and their knights were subject to them. The 
heimin did the work and supported the military caste. 
Some of these families of daimyo were obscure, others 
were almost as great and powerful as the Shogun him- 
self. This clan spirit, persisting today, has been an 
important factor in modern Japanese politics. Two of 
these clans attained great power toward the end of the 
feudal era. One, the clan of Satsuma, had its seat at 
the southernmost end of the country; the other, the 
Choshu, had its seat near the western entrance to the 
" Inland Sea." The combination of the two, called in 
Japan the " Sat-Cho " group, has largely controlled 
governmental affairs. The army today is officered 
chiefly by Choshu men, the navy by Satsuma men. 

It is important to remember how very recent the 
feudal system is in Japanese history. Japan has today 
a' constitutional government with a parliament, but this 
doesjiot necessarily imply the same things that are true 



JAPAN ON PROBATION I5 

of England and her government, any more than the 
fact that Venezuela is a republic implies any similarity 
between her government and that of the United States. 
Eight centuries of feudalism cannot be wiped out of 
existence in a generation, no matter what verbal changes 
may be inaugurated. 

Intercourse with the Occident 

In 1542 the Portuguese discovered Japan, and seven 
years later the famous missionary St. Francis Xavier 
arrived. His proselyting was very successful. Both 
nobles and common people accepted the Faith by the 
thousands, and the land was in a fair way to become a 
Christian one. But the missionaries were overzealous 
and attempted to combine temporal with spiritual power. 
In consequence, the Japanese, fearing for their national 
existence, turned on the foreigners and their religion, 
forbade the practice of the Christian faith, expelled the 
missionaries, and closed up the country absolutely. In 
doing so they had the active assistance of the Dutch. 
This was in 1624. For over two hundred years Japan 
maintained her seclusion. Only the Dutch were allowed 
to have a trading post at Nagasaki, where they were 
compelled to pay annual tribute to the Sh5gun and were 
subject to very humiliating restrictions. 

But the later generations of Shoguns did not have 



i6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

the strength of the earlier ones. Their authority crum- 
bled. Japanese historians began to investigate the 
history of their country and to call attention to the fact 
that the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, was the real ruler, 
whereas the Shoguns were usurpers. There grew up 
also a restless element in the large cities that was ripe 
for revolt. 

Accordingly, when Commodore Perry of the United 
States navy appeared in Tokyo bay in July, 1853, with 
his little fleet of four warships, his coming was the last 
push that sent the tottering structure of the Shogunate 
to the ground. The watchword now became, " Restore 
the Emperor to his full power." The Shogun and his 
staff were between two fires. The Americans were fol- 
lowed by the English, Russians, and French, and insur- 
rection in the name of the true Emperor broke out 
against the Shogun's party, that had opened the gate 
to the hated foreigner. In 1866 the reigning Shogun 
died. The next year the old Emperor died, and in 1868 
the young Emperor came to the throne which he was to 
occupy until 19 12. 

It is a mistake to think that Perry, as it were, " hap- 
pened upon." Japan at a fortunate time to negotiate. 
As a matter of fact, Americans, officially and unofficially, 
had made previously several futile attempts to enter 
into relations with the proud and warlike Japanese. 



JAPAN ON PROBATION i7 

Russia, England, and France had also made fruitless 
efforts. In 1797 an American vessel had visited Naga- 
saki, chartered by the Dutch, who were the only people 
the Japanese would permit to trade. When, a little 
later, the captain of the same ship tried to trade on his 
own account, he was sent away. 

In 1837 an elaborate expedition was fitted out with 
the avowed purpose of returning to Japan a number of 
shipwrecked Japanese who had been picked up adrift 
on the open sea. This boat was fired upon and driven 
away both from Tokyo and Kagoshima, the seat of the 
Satsuma clan. History does not record that the ship- 
wrecked Japanese ever saw their native land again. 

In 1845 another attempt was made to return to Japan 
some Japanese castaways, twenty-two in all. This time 
the Japanese were allowed to land, but not the Ameri- 
cans. The next year an official expedition was dis- 
patched under Commodore Biddle. This embassy was 
contemptuously received and was entirely unsuccessful. 

These attempts had been made in the interest of 
furthering American trade, a very legitimate one, of 
course. But it was brought to the attention of the State 
Department soon after, that another reason existed for 
desiring some sort of understanding with Japan. The 
North Pacific at this time was full of American whalers 
who not infrequently suffered shipwreck. When these 



i8 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

shipwrecked sailors were cast up on the inhospitable 
shores of Japan, their plight was a pitiable one. They 
were imprisoned and treated with great cruelty, even 
subjected to torture. Some of these sailors were rescued 
in 1849 by ^^ American ship of war dispatched for the 
purpose. 

Perry's expedition was the culmination of these 
various attempts. Every effort was made to give it a 
dignified and official character, A personal letter of 
President Fillmore to the Japanese Emperor ^ was in- 
closed in a magnificent case. All sorts of valuable 
presents were carried, including a miniature railway 
with engine and cars, telegraph instruments, champagne, 
and "many barrels of whisky." 

Perry's squadron, the first steam vessels ever seen by 
the Japanese, went up Tokyo bay against a head wind, 
with black smoke belching from the funnels, and carried 
consternation and dismay to the people on land, although 
the panic was somewhat allayed when the threatened 
invasion did not occur. 

The Japanese tried the same tactics they had adopted 

on previous occasions, but Perry insisted upon treating 

with no one but a high official, and while showing every 

consideration and a consummate tact, yet demanded 

1 In reality, the Shogun ; the Americans did not appreciate the 
true situation with regard to the Japanese sovereign. 



JAPAN DN probation i9 

the respect and dignity due to the personal ambassador 
of one of the great nations of the earth. The Japanese 
made a virtue of necessity and finally consented to re- 
ceive the President's letter, contrary to their own laws, 
as they said. They, however, professed themselves 
quite unwilling to grant the American's request to con- 
clude a treaty. Wisely refraining from pressing the 
matter too far or provoking hostilities which would have 
defeated the purpose of the mission, Commodore Perry 
departed, with the reminder that he would return with 
a larger squadron in the spring for his definite answer. 

The Americans " felt highly gratified at what had 
been accomplished. They had received different treat- 
ment from any foreigners who had visited Japan for 
two centuries. They had commanded respect and 
secured intercourse upon the basis of equality. They 
held direct communication with the highest imperial 
authorities without the intervention of the Dutch at 
Nagasaki.^ They disregarded or caused to be with- 

iWhen the Ambassador of the Dutch trading company was 
granted audience by the Shogun, "he crawl'd on his hands and 
knees, to a place shew'd him, between the presents ranged in due 
order on one side and the place where the Emperor sat on the 
other, and then kneeling, he bow'd his forehead quite to the ground, 
and so crawl'd backwards like a crab without uttering a single 
word. So mean and short a thing is the audience we have of 
this mighty monarch." [Kaempfer, "History of Japan, i6gi."] 
We may well believe that a Yankee naval officer would decline to 
participate in any such performance. On another occasion during 



20 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

drawn local regulations which were derogatory to the 
dignity of their nation. On the other hand, while ex- 
hibiting firmness as to their rights, they showed the 
utmost regard for the sovereignty and rights of the 
Japanese. The crews of the vessels were not permitted 
to go on shore. No native was insulted or maltreated ; 
no woman was outraged; no property was taken; no 
police regulation was violated — practices quite com- 
mon on the part of the crews of other foreign ships." ^ 
It is important to keep in mind this attitude of the 
Japanese toward foreigners. A proud, self-satisfied 
people, with an extraordinarily complex and subtle code 
of etiquette, which was of course a sealed book to the 
Westerner, could not help but look upon the outsider as 

the same visit the Emperor condescended, for the edification of 
his ladies, and Kaempfer relates that "he ordered us to take off 
our Cappa or Cloak, being our Garment of Ceremony, then to 
stand upright that he might have a full view of us ; again to walk, 
to stand still, to compliment each other, to dance, to jump, to play 
the drunkard, to speak broken Japanese, to read Dutch, to paint, 
to sing, to put our cloaks on and off. Meanwhile we obeyed the 
Emperor's commands in the best manner we could, I join'd to my 
dance a love song in High German. In this manner and with in- 
numerable such other apish tricks we must suffer ourselves to 
contribute to the Emperor's and the Court's diversion." One is 
reminded of the Igorrotes in the Filipino village at the St. Louis 
World's Fair. The Japanese idea of this may be gathered from a 
remark made to Kaempfer by the Governor of " Osacca " to the 
effect that "it was a singular favour to be admitted into the 
Emperor's presence, that of all nations in the world only the 
Dutch were allowed this honor." 
1 Foster, "American Diplomacy in the Orient," Boston, 1903. 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 21 

a hopeless barbarian, ignorant of everything that in the 
Japanese mind distinguished a cultured man from an 
ignorant boor. It cannot be gainsaid that the actions 
of sailors, traders, and others with whom they had pre- 
viously come in contact had gone far to confirm this 
impression. The dignity and restraint of Perry was in 
sharp contrast to the demeanor of some of the foreigners 
that had come to Japan, and this, together with the 
suggestion of hidden powers revealed by his steamboats, 
impressed the Japanese dignitaries favorably in spite 
of their fears. The Dutch they frankly despised. That 
they granted a measure of " equality " to the Americans 
was a great concession, however absurd it may have 
seemed to the latter. 

In February, 1854, true to his promise, Commodore 
Perry returned with a squadron of ten warships and 
carried through the somewhat delicate negotiations in- 
volved in making the treaty. Free trade in open ports 
was not obtained at once, but many concessions were 
gained; the best of feeling seemed to prevail between 
the Japanese and American officials, and Perry's suc- 
cessful conclusion of his difficult mission was acclaimed 
at home and abroad. 

At once the United States took advantage of its 
newly gained treaty rights to send a consul to Japan. 
The man chosen was Townsend Harris. The name of 



22 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Harris deserves as enduring a place in national memory 
as that of Perry. Unsupported by a powerful fleet, 
living for over a year in fact without communication 
with his home country, apparently forgotten in Wash- 
ington ( for Webster who had planned the Perry expedi- 
tion was dead), in the midst of a semi-anarchy attendant 
upon the dissolution of the Shogunate and the restora- 
tion of the Emperor, Harris nevertheless maintained 
a steadfastness of purpose, and displayed a tact and 
ability that deserve the highest praise. Every sort of 
obstruction was placed in his way by the Japanese, but 
in the end he won his way through to thd conclusion of 
a treaty, so skillfully drawn that it served as the model 
for all subsequent treaties entered into by Japan with 
other foreign nations. Indeed it served as the basis of 
Japan's foreign relations until 1899. Harris refused to 
crawl upon his hands and knees before the Shogun, and 
that monarch respected his prejudices in the matter. 

While the name of Townsend Harris, almost unknown 
in America today, is highly respected by the Japanese, 
that of Perry is nearly as well known in Japan as that of 
any of their national heroes. In 1901 a monument was 
dedicated to the memory of Perry on the spot where he 
had landed, and this was made the occasion of striking 
and impressive ceremonies in which representatives 
both of the governments of Japan and the United States 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 23 

took part. Perry is recognized in Japan as the instru- 
ment by which the empire took its first step on its reor- 
ganization as a modern nation. There exists also in 
the Japanese mind a subtler reason for venerating the 
memory of the American commodore. Perry forced 
the hand of the Sh5gun and his government in compel- 
ling him to admit the hated foreigners. To so admit 
them was considered by the daimyd a betrayal of the 
country, and hence there rallied about the true Emperor 
the forces of opposition to the Shogun which caused the 
overthrow of the latter and the restoration of the Mi- 
kado. Respect for their Emperor amounts almost to 
fanaticism with the Japanese. Since, therefore, Perry's 
visit contributed largely to the restoration of the Em- 
peror, the Japanese have an additional reason to venerate 
his memory. On the other hand, the fair dealing which 
the Japanese received at the hands of our early repre- 
sentatives, at a time when the former were as innocent 
as children in the ways of international diplomacy, 
strengthened the bonds of friendship between ourselves 
and the Island Kingdom. 

It was inevitable that in the disturbed political con- 
ditions incidental to the restoration clashes should occur 
between the foreigners and the fanatical warriors of 
the various clans. Some of the clans refused to abide 
by the decision to admit the foreigners, and numerous 



24 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

riots and anti-foreign demonstrations occurred. The 
Secretary of the 7\merican Consulate was murdered and 
an Englishman named Richardson was cut down while 
attempting to break through the ceremonial procession 
of the Daimyd of Satsuma. The Enghsh government 
took cognizance of this and demanded an indemnity 
of the Shogunate, which was paid, and another of the 
Prince of Satsuma, which was refused, whereupon 
Kagoshima, the capital of the province, was bombarded ' 
and burnt. A little later the American legation was 
burned by a mob, and all the foreign representatives 
were forced to leave Tokyo and take refuge in Yoko- 
hama under the guns of their warships. 

The culmination of these disturbances was what is 
known as the " Shimonoseki affair." The straits of 
Shimonoseki communicate between the Inland Sea and 
the western waters between Japan and Korea. It was 
bordered by the lands of the Prince of Chdshu, a very 
powerful and anti-foreign daimyo who refused to ac- 
knowledge the sovereignty of the Shdgun in concluding 
treaties with the foreigners. He closed the straits and 
fired upon passing vessels, American, French, Dutch, 
and English. Representations were made to the Sho- 
gun, but the latter confessed himself helpless to control 
the actions of the lord of Choshu. So a combined fleet 
of the four nations involved, consisting of seventeen 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 25 

warships, descended upon Shimonoseki and demon- 
strated to the Prince, with gunpowder, the futihty of 
attempting independently to rule his own domain. As 
our Civil War was in progress at the time there was no 
American fleet in Japanese waters, and the Federal 
Government chartered a vessel from the Dutch in order 
to participate in the chastisement of the bumptious 
daimyo. After the affray the four nations demanded 
an indemnity of the Shogun's government in the amount 
of $3,000,000, an enormous sum for the impoverished 
treasury to pay. The booty was divided into four parts, 
one fourth to each nation, although the United States 
had but one gunboat in the fleet. This $750,000 rested 
rather heavily on Uncle Sam's conscience, and twenty 
years later, by act of Congress, it was returned, with 
interest, to Japan, where it was gratefully accepted 
and used in improving Yokohama harbor. This ex- 
ample of altruistic endeavor has never been followed 
by the other nations involved, although England later 
used her share in a very questionable exchange. 

A great deal of interest attaches to the Shimonoseki 
affair in the light of recent events. The control of the 
President of the United States over the actions of the 
governor and legislature of California is as defective as 
was that of the Shogun over the Prince of Choshu, 
and if at the passage of the Webb Act (debarring Jap- 



26 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

anese from owning land in California) the American 
government had been poor and helpless, and the Jap- 
anese, with a powerful fleet in the Potomac River, had 
chosen to press their grievances, the exaction of an 
indemnity of Washington would have been on all fours 
with the Shimonoseki levy.^ 

It is to the credit of our public officials, and a matter 
of much satisfaction to American citizens, that our 
dealings with foreign countries, particularly in the 
Orient, have been characterized in the main by a generous 
feeling and a sense of equity rather rare in international 
relations. It is true that in some matters nearer home, 
such as those of Texas and California, our motives 
have been somewhat Jesuitical, yet as a rule we have 
scorned to be sordid. 

In 1856 the United States came into armed conflict 
with China or rather with a Chinese province. Colli- 
sions of various sorts finally led to a joint expeditionary 
force which attacked Tientsin. Americans were in- 
volved along with French, Russians, and English. Va- 
rious losses to the property of American missionaries 
and merchants were met by the payment of an indem- 

1 As a matter of fact, in the well-known New Orleans lynchings 
the national government paid an indemnity to the families of the 
Italians killed, while at the same time confessing to the Italian 
government its inability to put any pressure upon the Louisiana 
authorities to punish the ringleaders of the mob. 



JAPAN t)N PROBATION 27 

nity to us by China of $735,000. In 1885, however, we 
returned to China the unexpended balance of $453,400. 
The only other time that we came into collision with an 
Oriental power was in 1900, at the time of the Boxer 
outbreak. At the conclusion of this brief campaign a 
crushing indemnity was levied. Again in a few years 
the American share of this booty, over and above what 
satisfied the actual damages, was returned to China. 

Altogether, during the past century, our country has 
come into armed conflict with the Orient three times. 
None of the campaigns was of sufficient importance 
to be called a war. In each of them, however, indemnity 
was exacted, — in two of the cases only because the 
foreign powers were associated together in joint action. 
In every case the money was returned, except for the 
proportion that went to satisfy just claims. 

This sort of action may be styled " playing to the 
gallery." The justice of such a charge depends upon 
the sincerity of the motive. I think it cannot be ques- 
tioned that the American people are overwhelmingly 
opposed to keeping money that does not belong to them. 
Oriental peoples have a very keen sense of justice, and 
it must be confessed that this trait has not been in the 
past a conspicuous characteristic of the way of an Occi- 
dental with an Oriental. This is particularly true of 
China. 



2S JAPANESE EXPANSION 

But in the case of Japan another and very human 
element enters into the impression made upon pubUc 
opinion by acts such as have just been described. When 
the Japanese knight or samurai was in his glory, an im- 
passable gulf separated him from the tradesman. Even 
the artisan and the farmer were ranked higher. The 
tradesmen occupied the lowest rung of the social ladder. 
This accounted for a good deal of the contempt which 
was shown the Dutch at Nagasaki during the long years 
of seclusion. The latter were there for such money 
as they could make, and cared not for social indignities 
so long as they could take their profit. All foreigners 
were classed together in this regard by the Japanese, 
and accordingly it was held beneath the dignity of a 
noble to have intercourse with them. Perry's attitude 
and his dignified bearing in the negotiations of 1853 
were a surprise to the Japanese and caused them to 
modify their original estimate of foreigners and perhaps 
to think of Americans as somewhat in a class by them- 
selves. 

The feudal contempt for trade has passed away with 
the growth of commerce and industrialism and with the 
entrance of men of high lineage into the field of business. 
But the old ideas still persist in part, particularly among 
the gentry. It is not " good form " in Japan today to 
pass money from one to another except when wrapped 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 29 

in white paper (shopkeepers, of course, excepted). 
Even your tip to the landlord of the inn must be wrapped 
up and given with a disparaging remark. A Japanese 
gentleman would think it beneath his dignity to count 
his change. The writer once stirred up a hornet's 
nest about himself by innocently checking over a laundry 
list submitted to him by a houseman, who turned out 
to be a samurai in very reduced circumstances. Even 
in America the Far Westerner who doesn't bother to 
wait for his change has a certain contempt for the resi- 
dent of the Atlantic seaboard who counts his pennies. 

Now the open-handed disregard for money for its own 
sake, implied in the remission of indemnities originally 
levied by joint action of the " Powers," produced in 
the Japanese mind a more favorable reaction than it 
would in any other country, on account of the national 
attitude described above, and has done much to aid the 
development of a real friendship between Japan and 
America. 

In 1879 the Japanese people had an opportunity to 
demonstrate their enthusiastic friendship for us. In 
that year, ex-President Grant made a tour of the world. 
His travels in Japan were in the nature of a triumph. 
No foreigner, hardly any national hero before or since, 
has had such a spontaneous demonstration of popular en- 
thusiasm. Books describing Grant's visit are still sold 



30 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

in the bookstalls in Japanese cities. Grant was accorded 
royal honors and acted with great tact throughout the 
trip.^ He was asked to arbitrate between China and 
Japan with regard to a controversy concerning the Riu- 
Kiu Islands and carried out the delicate commission 
with success. 

The United States had yet one other opportunity 
of demonstrating its friendship for the Island Kingdom 
when the time came to revise the treaties that were 
drafted at the beginning of foreign intercourse. The 
original treaties drafted, one might say dictated, by the 
Western Powers, followed the precedent that had been 
adopted in establishing relations with semi-civilized 
states in the past. At the time of the Restoration, tor- 
ture was an important feature of Japanese judicial pro- 
cedure, just as it had been in Europe not many centuries 
before. Under such circumstances it was inconceiv- 
able that Western nations should leave their own na- 
tionals to the tender mercies of Japanese judges, and 
accordingly a clause providing for extraterritoriality 
was inserted in all the treaties. This prevails today in 
a modified form in China and was but very recently 
abrogated in Turkey. Under the working of the 

1 Instance his refusal to cross the sacred bridge at Nikko, a 
privilege reserved to the Emperor and offered to a foreigner for 
the first time in history when Grant was invited to cross. 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 3i 

" extraterritoriality " provision, the control of all for- 
eigners resident in Japan was in the hands of the foreign 
consuls, who, as judges, tried all cases involving foreign- 
ers, from petty larceny to murder. American consuls, 
being political appointees, in many cases had not a ves- 
tige of legal training or judicial experience. Of course 
the Japanese could not permit foreigners over whom 
they had no control to wander at will through the coun- 
try, and the right of residence was therefore restricted 
to the foreign " concessions " of the treaty ports. When 
foreigners traveled or resided outside these concessions, 
they had to be provided with police passports. This 
situation, which was inevitable in the early days of 
intercourse, soon became galling to the proud Japanese, 
anxious to assume a place in the family of nations. 

Another clause of these early treaties was even more 
a source of irritation. The Japanese who signed them 
were wholly ignorant of the nature of modern inter- 
national relations and placed their interests unreservedly 
in the hands of the one they most trusted, the Ameri- 
can consul-general, Townsend Harris. The latter drew 
up a tariff in the best interests of the Japanese, with 
foodstuffs and raw materials on the free list and liquors 
at 35 per cent ad valorem. Lord Elgin, at that time 
in charge of British interests, negotiated a tariff treaty 
soon afterwards. He utilized the English share of the 



32 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Shimonoseki indemnity in a way suggestive of an Ameri- 
can " gold-brick " expert, trading it back to the confiding 
Japanese in exchange for a reduction to 5 per cent of 
the import duty on wool and cotton manufactures. 
Now there is a clause rarely omitted in international 
treaties, termed the " most favored nation " clause, by 
virtue of which any concession made to one nation is 
of necessity shared by all other treaty-powers. This 
English treaty resulted therefore in a reduction to 5 per 
cent ad valorem all around. The Japanese were help- 
less in the matter, and the good offices of the American 
representatives were unavailing against the rapacity of 
the Europeans. As cotton manufactures in particular 
constituted at that time the bulk of the imports, and 
was the industry most in need of "protection," this 
resulted in a very unjust restriction upon Japanese 
commerce. In fact, until the treaty revision of 1899 
the customs receipts never reached four million dol- 
lars, the largest annual total (that of 1899) being but 
$3,140,000. This sum barely paid the cost of collection. 
The worst of it was that the Japanese soon awoke 
to the fact that not only had they bargained away to the 
European Jacobs their rights of control over foreigners 
in their own dominions and the right to fix their own 
tariffs, but more than this, that they had done so, not 
for a period of years, but apparently in perpetuity. At 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 33 

least when they sought to improve their status, they 
discovered that on account of the absence of a definite 
date to terminate such treaties the Western powers 
decided that the agreements should remain in force 
until the said powers should agree to change them. 

Still relying on the justice of the nations of Christen- 
dom, the Japanese in 1871 dispatched a special embassy, 
with Prince Iwakura, then foreign minister, at its head, 
to make a tour of America and Europe, present the 
claims of Japan to recognition and sovereignty and pave 
the way for a new and more equitable revision of the 
existing treaties. This embassy included some of the 
leaders of the New Japan and altogether comprised more 
than one hundred persons. They came first to America, 
where they were made the official guests of the nation, 
were entertained royally, and received the assurance 
of the State Department that the United States was 
prepared to take up treaty revision on terms more favor- 
able to Japan. But when the embassy reached Europe, 
they found a very different attitude. Great Britain 
was then the chief exponent of the " mailed fist " in the 
Far East, and English commerce profited too greatly 
by the tariff with Japan to permit any change. It is 
but fair to suppose that if American commerce had been 
to any degree comparable with that of England at the 
time, the embassy might not have found so altruistic, 



34 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

not to say avuncular, an attitude displayed toward them 
in this country. 

The fact remains, however, that when the Japanese 
returned to their own land from their fruitless quest 
and summed up the results of their endeavor, the atti- 
tude of the United States stood out in bold contrast 
to that of the European powers and produced a pro- 
found impression, not only upon the official classes, but 
upon the mass of the people. Nothing was left, how- 
ever, but to build up Japan to a status upon which she 
might assert her independence and defend her rights. 
This she forthwith bent every energy to accomplish. 
As might be expected, the Japanese turned to America 
for the help which was freely granted. An American 
organized the efficient postal system; most institutions 
of higher learning had Americans as professors in all 
departments (except medicine, which was imported 
bodily from Germany, and law, in which the methods of 
the French are more congenial to Japanese institutions 
than those of Anglo-Saxondom) ; the national fiscal 
system was remodeled by officials from the United States 
Treasury Department. Americans have constantly been 
retained in the capacity of advisors to the Foreign Office. 
In general, Americans both officially and privately 
have been largely instrumental in shaping the externals 
of New Japan and enabling the modern nation to get 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 35 

upon its feet. This relation has been intensified by the 
great number of Japanese students who have come to 
America to study in our colleges and universities. These 
invariably have been shown every attention and given 
every opportunity. Nor should we neglect to mention 
the influence for the past forty-five years of the mission- 
aries, most of whom have been American. As to the 
success of their proselyting there may be two opinions, 
but with regard to the influence upon Japanese public 
opinion and thought, of the presence of American fami- 
lies of the highest type scattered throughout the Empire, 
there can be but one. These missionaries, broad-minded 
and catholic in thought, college graduates as a rule, 
speaking the language fluently, associating on a plane 
of equality with the most influential of the Japanese 
intellectual and official classes, have been as bits of 
leaven scattered through the mass of the Japanese popu- 
lation, often unconsciously and unintentionally acquaint- 
ing the Japanese with American ideas and ideals, and 
removing the greatest of all barriers to international 
amity, that of prejudice and ignorance of the foreigner. 
The net result of all these factors is that the Japanese 
people, high and low, know a great deal more of Amer- 
ica and the American people than we do of them. 

But the Japanese realized that it was not sufficient 
to remodel Japan on the basis of Western jurisprudence, 



36 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

commerce, medicine and science. They had been slow 
indeed if they had failed to take into account the place 
that arms and force have occupied in Occidental diplo- 
macy. Moreover, it would be too much to expect that 
a whole population of professional warriors, the samurai, 
would find places in an economic system that did not 
include an army. Accordingly they sought the aid of 
European drillmasters and began the not difificult task 
of making over the army according to European stand- 
ards and of establishing a modern navy. The use to 
which they have put these adjuncts to modern civili- 
zation will be discussed in the next chapter. 

Summary 

Japan has emerged from a condition of complete 
feudalism into that of a modern constitutional monarchy 
within the experience of men now living. For two cen- 
turies and a half previous to this change she had shut 
herself off from intercourse with other nations, jeal- 
ously guarding against the entrance of any outside bar- 
barians and developing a high degree of civilization 
in which flourished the arts of peace as well as those of 
war. By the middle of the nineteenth century internal 
disintegration had paved the way to revolution, and 
when in 1853 the American Commodore Perry called 
with his fleet, conditions were favorable for insisting 



JAPAN ON PROBATION 37 

upon the assumption of friendly relations with the West- 
ern nations. 

Japan then signed treaties, first with America and 
later with other powers, in which she yielded up the right 
to control foreigners within her dominions and to fix 
her own tariffs. Being unable to secure a change in 
these hard conditions until she should have made over 
her national life upon Western models, she set herself 
the great task of transforming a collection of eighty-six 
semi-independent fiefs into a unified nation on Occidental 
lines. This she accomplished in a remarkably short 
space of time through the ability and foresight of her 
leaders, the sterling qualities of her common people, and 
the devotion of all classes to the Imperial throne. In 
all this she received much help from Western countries, 
and particularly from the United States. 

As a whole and practically without exception, the 
relations that existed between Japan and America for 
the last half of the nineteenth century were more than 
friendly. On the side of America they partook of the 
attitude of a proud teacher toward the exploits of an 
apt pupil (ignoring naturally the fact that the young 
Empire had other instructors). In the mind of Japan 
the position of America was that of " elder brother," an 
Oriental relationship that is hard to appreciate in the 
Occident, where family connections are, by comparison, 



38 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

relatively insignificant. This attitude of America was 
in part due to the fact that until 1897 America had 
hardly attained self-consciousness as a nation of the 
world. Constitutional America is only about seventy- 
five years older than constitutional Japan, and to future 
historians with the perspective of a couple of centuries, 
the transformation of our own nation during the nine- 
teenth century may seem more wonderful than that of 
Japan. The two nations are not unlike two boys who 
grow up together. And it is a common human experi- 
ence that two bosom companions of youthful days may 
find their paths diverge as maturity comes, and the 
romantic affections of nonage cool to the more business- 
like relations of men of the world. 



CHAPTER III 

JAPAN COMES OF AGE 

When the Japanese had reformed their judiciary and 
their diplomatic and postal services, had established the 
machinery for commerce, remodeled their educational 
system, and, in general, made over their national gar- 
ments by an Occidental pattern, they rather naturally 
supposed that their years of probation were ended and 
that the irritating restrictions of extraterritoriality and 
lack of tariff autonomy would be removed by the nations 
that had been so prominent in leading Japan from the 
darkened chamber of feudalism into the light of West- 
ern civilization. 

They were doomed to a bitter disappointment. In 
the attempt to mitigate the more irritating of these 
two restrictions, Count Inouye, one of the ablest of 
Japan's new leaders, after tedious discussions, at last in 
1886 secured the concession that Japanese judges should 
be allowed to serve on the bench in cases involving 
aliens. But the foreign judges were to be nominated 
by the European diplomats, were to constitute a ma- 
jority, and to control the rules of procedure. 

39 



40 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

This concession came so near to realizing the 
Japanese proverb of " pointing at a stag and caUing it 
a horse," that great pubHc indignation was aroused and 
the conferences were broken off. The American minis- 
ter alone supported the Japanese demands for recogni- 
tion in opposition to his colleagues. Count Inouye's 
successor to the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, Count 
Okuma, tried to revise the treaties by negotiating with 
each nation separately. America had long before ex- 
pressed her willingness; Germany, France, and Russia 
were finally won over, but Great Britain stood out to 
the end against any concession. This aroused such 
public indignation, and the snub was felt so keenly by 
the Japanese, that Okuma, who was responsible for the 
situation, was also forced to resign — however, not be- 
fore a fanatic had blown off his leg with a bomb. 

The reaction from these disappointments was keen 
and took the form of an anti- foreign sentiment ex- 
pressed not so much against foreigners themselves, as 
against foreign ideas, dress, usages, etc., and the su- 
periority of native institutions began to be preached. 
The government, however, went on with its reforms, and 
in 1889 the Emperor promulgated the Constitution, 
organizing a Diet and a machinery of government 
modeled after that of Prussia. 

But the Japanese were not stupid in reading history 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 41 

nor in observing it. They well knew that the profes- 
sions of disinterestedness on the part of European 
powers are frequently contradicted by their actions. 
Even Perry's success was in no small part attributable 
to his gunboats. The Japanese realized that however 
far toward social perfection in the individual relations 
the Western nations may have progressed, in inter- 
national relations the law of the jungle still holds good. 
And they knew that their motives, their cleverness, 
their positive achievements in art, letters, and science, 
would continue to count for little with nations whose 
politics are still based upon comparative military power. 
Japan had tried to gain her place by achievements in 
the arts of peace. She had failed. She therefore 
determined to qualify in the arts of war. Her success 
in the eyes of the West has an aspect almost ludicrous. 

To say that Japan, with a brand new army and navy, 
was itching to show them off before the world, and 
was therefore only too glad of an excuse to fight, would 
be to state something impossible to prove. There never 
yet has been a war that was not only wholly justifiable — 
but really inevitable — to the power that declared it. 

Unfortunately for China, whenever any other nation 
wishes an excuse to fight her, she is more than accom- 
modating. The attitude of the great Chinese Empire 
toward the upstart Japanese, whom their earliest 



42 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

chronicles contemptuously term ** dwarfs " and 
"shrimps," has never been one calculated to allay 
irritation. Nor has Korea behaved any better. In 
fact, after the fall of the Shogunate, when Japan was 
endeavoring to remodel her government on an Occi- 
dental pattern, the Koreans considered such action 
traitorous to the cause of the Orient and became very 
contumacious. In 1875 they fired on a Japanese gun- 
boat and Japan was compelled to dispatch a squadron 
d> la Commodore Perry to force a treaty of " amity and 
commerce " from the defiant Koreans. 

This assertion of national independence on the part 
of the Hermit Kingdom did not in the least suit China, 
who had all along tried to maintain the fiction that 
Korea was a vassal state. And Chinese officials began 
to exercise an influence in Korean affairs, directed in the 
main toward promotion of trouble with Japan. 

The history of Korea is one long chronicle of corrup- 
tion and misrule. As the activities of Japan and her 
ascendancy in the eyes of the world were particularly 
odious to those Korean officials who profited most by 
the then political condition of the peninsula, and as 
China was disposed on her own account to back up the 
latter, conflicts and disputes between Korea and Japan 
became frequent. When the latter country tried to 
press her own claims upon Korea, she was met by the 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 43 

Chinese contention that Korea was a tributary state of 
China, a stand which China was prepared to support by 
arms. Finally, in July, 1894, insurrection broke out in 
Korea and things came to a crisis. 

Nothing could have suited Japan better. However 
scrupulous or fearful the statesmen of the rejuvenated 
kingdom might have been, the army and navy were 
spoiling for a fight. Nor were the Japanese as a whole 
averse to the idea of " reforming " Korean institutions. 
No one is so zealous as the new convert, and certainly 
Korea has long been in chronic need of reformation. 
China feared that Japan was bent upon annexing 
Korea — a fear that has been completely justified by 
subsequent events, although it is doubtful if it were 
justified at the time. When war actually broke out, 
the campaign was short and decisive. China was pro- 
vided with battleships and Krupp guns, and on paper 
was the better equipped, but the hopeless inefficiency 
of the Chinese as a fighting man was most thoroughly 
demonstrated and she was beaten in every battle. 
The war lasted seven months and the Japanese lost 
altogether 1000 men killed with 5000 wounded. China's 
indemnity was fixed at 20o,ooo,c»o taels, and in addi- 
tion she was forced to cede to the victor the island of 
Formosa and the Liao-Tung peninsula, with the fortress 
of Port Arthur. 



44 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Japan thrilled with her success.^ At last she was 
become a power in the world and a member of the 
family of nations. Great Britain, long so obstinate, 
hastened to conclude treaties with her, abrogating ex- 
traterritoriality in five years and granting to her the 
long-sought tariff autonomy; began the moves indeed 
that eight years later culminated in the Anglo- Japanese 
alliance. Japan felt that recognition was at last 
achieved. 

This was certainly true, but the recognition of Japan's 
prowess on the part of the rest of Europe was not at all 
according to the cards. European nations had not been 
so indifferent to Japan's progress as she had imagined. 
At least one monarch had watched it with misgivings. 
This was the German Emperor. With his active imagi- 
nation he saw disaster breeding from this awakening of 
the Orient. Attributing to the Far East the same mo- 
tives of aggression that have actuated the West, he had 
a vision of hordes of Orientals swarming over Asia into 

1 Probably this was one of the most successful wars that have 
been fought in modern times. Mr. Roosevelt has recently pointed 
to Japan ("America and the World War") as a nation that has 
" profited " by successful war. Japan, in 1896, published the cost 
of the Chinese war to be $97,246,210. The indemnity, therefore, 
represents a cash " profit " of about 35 per cent. The paradoxical 
consequence of this success, however, was that military expenditure 
in Japan jumped from $6,405,000 in 1894 to $12,059,000 in 1896, 
and $19,471,000 in 1898. And the Japanese citizen's taxes advanced 
accordingly. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 45 

Europe, wiping out European civilization with the sword 
which the short-sighted West had put into their hands. 
Such was the " Yellow Peril " which the Kaiser was 
to figure later in his famous cartoon. 

The victory of Japan came as an unpleasant shock 
to Germany. Yet, if the Kaiser had read history to 
better purpose, he would not have been so surprised. 
The Japanese have ever been aggressive and warlike 
and are most apt in imitation. They had merely 
grafted the newest fashions in man-killing upon ances- 
tral instincts and abilities. The ethics, instincts, and 
abilities of the Chinese, on the other hand, are anti- 
thetical to war, in spite of their unquestioned bravery. 
But to the European statesman, at the time, all Orien- 
tals were yellow, and, ipso facto, a " peril " to be antici- 
pated. 

One way to overcome the Yellow Peril was to kill 
it before it should become a peril, to turn it back, as a 
conflagration is stopped by backfiring. That Japan 
should get a foothold upon the continent of Asia was 
intolerable. The peace-treaty between China and 
Japan should not be allowed to stand. So Germany 
stepped in and, having persuaded France and Russia 
to back her up, compelled Japan to cede back to China 
the Liao-Tung peninsula and Port Arthur, in order to 
preserve the " balance of power." Japan's interest in 



46 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Port Arthur was at this time a political, not a colonial 
one. It holds the key to Pekin, the hinterland of 
Manchuria, and Korea, and her possession of it is a 
great guarantee of safety for the Island Empire. More- 
over, the peninsula is interposed, as it were, between 
China and Korea and would pretty effectually block 
off China from further interference in the latter coun- 
try. Japan was very reluctant to give up the fruits of 
her victory, but the depleted condition of her war-chest 
and the mobilization of the navies of three powers left 
her no recourse. A Japanese writer asserts that, " The 
historical significance of this memorable incident de- 
serves special emphasis. It is not too much to say that 
with it Eastern Asiatic history radically changed its 
character." ^ But in retroceding Port Arthur it ap- 
parently did not occur to the Japanese to provide 
against any other power getting hold of it. Perhaps 
it would not have mattered anyway, since she was in 
no position to enforce her demands. 

The immediate effect of Japan's victory was to stimu- 
late European aggression in the Orient. On the Teu- 
tonic principle that " attack is the best defense " the 
Powers hastened to intrench themselves before Japan 
could be in a position to checkmate them. " Spheres of 
influence " rapidly began to condense out of the nebula 
IK. Asakawa, "Russo-Japanese Conflict." Boston, 1904. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE '47 

of Oriental politics, and for the next ten years it seemed 
as if China was to cease to exist as a nation. 

Russia assumed the role of a devoted friend to China 
against the hated Japanese; loaned her half the money 
(without security) to pay the indemnity and guaranteed 
(in the secret " Cassini convention") to protect her 
against her enemies. China was not ungrateful for this 
help, and, in return, in 1898 " leased " to Russia for 
99 years the same Port Arthur that Europe had forced 
out of the hands of Japan. Port Arthur thus became 
for Japan what Alsace-Lorraine has been for France for 
forty years, and the first move of the Russo-Japanese 
war-game was played. 

There was something of a motive of self-protection 
in Russia's action. The first aggressor was Germany, 
and the leasing of Port Arthur was a sort of counter- 
move. One of the finest harbors on China's coast is that 
of Kiao Chau in the rich and populous district of Shan- 
tung. Germany for some time had had her eye upon 
this port, but it was not wise to attempt to gain a foot- 
hold while Russia might object. For a few years 
following the conclusion of the Chinese- Japanese war 
Russia was very busy strengthening her " fences " in 
Manchuria, and Germany saw her opportunity. For- 
tunately two Catholic priests were lynched November i, 
1897, by a mob in Shantung. The governor of the 



48 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

province ordered an investigation at once and in three 
weeks the ringleaders were caught. But it was too 
late. Already the German warships were in Kiao Chau 
harbor and German marines had seized the town. As 
no diplomatic representations had been made to Pekin, 
the Chinese authorities were left to infer that the seizure 
was a punishment for the murders. Meanwhile Prince 
Henry of Prussia had been sent by the Kaiser with a 
squadron to proclaim the doctrine of the " mailed fist " 
and to force the " lease " for 99 years of Kiao Chau. 
Germany's justification for this action was expressed 
by Herr von Biilow in the Reichstag April 27, 1898, 
when he said : " Mention has been made of a partition 
of China. Such a partition will not be brought about 
by us at any rate. All we have done is to provide that, 
come what may, we ourselves shall not go empty- 
handed. The traveler cannot decide when the train is 
to start, but he can make sure not to miss it when it 
does start. The devil takes the hindmost." And in 
Germany's contest with the devil, Herr von Biilow in- 
tended that her place should be far from the rear.^ 

1 Close students of this phase of Germany's policy will note that 
von Billow's Imperial Master did not take quite the same laisses- 
faire point of view. In his famous speech at Bremen, to the 
troops departing for China to participate in the quelling of the 
Boxer outbreak (July 27, 1900), Kaiser Wilhelm said: "The 
Chinese have overthrown the law of Nations ; . . . preserve the old 
Prussian thoroughness; show yourselves as Christians in joyfully 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 49 

Germany's action was immediately followed by 
Russia's in Port Arthur, and a little later England 
claimed equal privileges in Wei-hai-wei. Even Italy 
spoke for a share, but was frowned upon by the others 
for her presumption. France had long since strongly 
intrenched herself in Tonking on the south. England 
and Germany both wanted the rich territories of the 
Yangtse valley, and it is not unlikely that they might 
have gone to war about it on some pretext or other by 
this time if the Russo-Japanese war had not deflected 
the trend of events. In short, the "break-up" of 
China seemed very imminent. In this aggressive cam- 
paign, which suggests a pack of jackals quarreling over 
the body of a dying ox, Japan was a disturbing element. 
Actuated by no especially altruistic sentiments toward 
China, she was nevertheless confronted by the prospect 
of having her future markets preempted by hostile 
powers and her own development checked. On the 
other hand, the latter recognized in Japan, since her 

bearing your trials; may honor and glory follow your flags and 
weapons. You know very well that you are to fight against a 
cunning, brave, well-armed, and terrible enemy. If you come to 
grips with him, give no quarter, take no prisoners. Use your 
weapons in such a way that for a thousand years no Chinese shall 
dare to look upon a German askance. Show your manliness. The 
blessing of God be with you. The prayers of an entire people 
and my wishes accompany you every one. Open the door for 
culture once for all ! " [Official version printed in the Reichsan- 
seiger, translated by Christian Gauss.] 



50 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

easy victory over China, the only considerable obstacle 
to the success of their aggressive campaigns on the 
continent. 

One other event, a little later, strengthened the fears 
of Europe and gave the Powers pause. This was the 
notorious " Boxer " outbreak of 1900. The relief expe- 
dition incident to the affair afforded another oppor- 
tunity to show the world the proficiency of Japanese 
arms. Ever since the conclusion of the war of 1895 a 
seething current of anti- foreign propaganda had whirled 
beneath the surface of things in China. A few for- 
eigners had seen the outbreak coming and had uttered 
warnings, but they went unheeded. The seizure of terri- 
tory on the part of the European powers at this time 
was resented the more deeply because a national self- 
consciousness was beginning to stir throughout the in- 
choate Chinese Empire. Germany's activities were 
particularly resented. Japan was an Oriental country, 
and while the Chinese may have despised her they could 
hardly resent her presence as a next-door neighbor. 
Formosa was a prize of war and was not a part of the 
sacred Empire anyway. Russia's activities were con- 
fined to sparsely settled outlying districts. England 
and France had been established so long that in a 
measure the Chinese had grown accustomed to them. 
But Germany's presence on Chinese soil was so un- 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 5i 

called for, the excuse so flimsy, and her actions so 
threatening that a very profound effect was produced. 
Shantung, the province in which is located Kiao 
Chau, is one of the oldest and the most densely popu- 
lated of all China. It was the birthplace of Confucius 
and is often referred to as the " sacred province." In 
order to strengthen their grip on this province and their 
control in the immediate hinterland of Kiao Chau, the 
Germans began to construct a railway, the concession 
for which was most unwillingly granted. Now any 
long-settled district in China is one vast graveyard, and 
nothing is so repugnant to the sensibilities and religion 
of the Chinese as the desecration of the grave of 
an ancestor. Granting that the Germans would not 
wantonly affront the Chinese, yet to build such a 
railroad without interfering with graves is a physical 
impossibility, and it is certainly true that in construct- 
ing the relatively short line now in operation, thousands 
of graves were violated. This particular act (which 
has been repeated to a greater or less degree whenever 
railways have been built in the empire) did much to 
inflame Chinese feeling. , Again, the very great credulity 
and superstition of the common people led them to 
accept all sorts of wild tales regarding the hated for- 
eigner. Distrust of the missionaries also contributed a 
part to the general feeling, and economic influences 



52 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

likewise were not lacking, for the growth of foreign 
trade and the introduction of Western manufactures in 
many cases threatened to disturb the economic balance 
of this very conservative people. 

There has existed in China, for over a century, a secret 
society (analogous let us say to our " Odd Fellows " or 
" Knights of Pythias ") called the / Ho Tuan and re- 
ferred to by foreigners as " Boxers." This society, half 
benevolent, half mystical, and wholly patriotic, under- 
took to clear their native land of the detested foreigners 
who profaned it. The Boxer anti-foreign campaign 
rapidly gained headway in Shantung and soon got quite 
out of hand, for the Chinese soldiers sent to subdue them 
went over to the Boxer side. 

It would not be pertinent to devote space here to a 
description of the startling and melodramatic crisis of 
this agitation. The details of the siege of Pekin and 
the relief of the foreign legations by the troops of the 
allied powers will be found in any modern history of 
China.^ But two aspects of this campaign of the for- 
eign troops in North China deserve especial mention. 
In the first place, the emergency was a very sudden 
one in spite of the repeated warnings. America had 
troops in the Philippines, and Japan was of course next 
door. But the latter was disinclined to court criticism 
1 See especially " China in Convulsion," by A. H. Smith. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 53 

by acting too precipitately, and as a matter of fact inter- 
national jealousies played a conspicuous part in deter- 
mining the relative proportion of troops each nation 
should contribute to the expeditionary force dispatched 
to Pekin. Russia was differently situated. The Trans- 
Siberian railway was but just completed, and the 
" Chinese-Eastern " branch, planned to exploit Man- 
churia, ran for looo miles through a region sufficiently 
wild and dangerous even under ordinary circumstances. 
To guard this railway, and incidentally to get a firmer 
grip on the three provinces, Russia at the first outbreak 
of trouble began to pour in troops from Siberia. The 
exact number will probably never be known, but it was 
upward of 30,000. When the Boxer campaign was 
ended and peace reigned once more in China, Russia 
manifested a great reluctance to withdraw any troops 
from Manchuria. To the protests of the Powers, she 
answered by converting her army of occupation into 
" railway guards." These guards were constantly being 
shifted and, to the Japanese, the meaning of their 
presence was only too clear. Russians began to employ 
the present instead of the future tense in speaking of 
Manchuria as Russian territory. 

Thus was a second round in the Russo-Japanese game 
played and the trick taken by Russia. The Boxer out- 
break also tended to hasten the climax for another 



54 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

reason. The dispatch of the composite force up to 
Pekin afforded a most interesting laboratory demon- 
stration of the comparative efficiency of the different 
armies as they marched and fought side by side against 
a common foe. In this, not only did the Japanese 
troops stand comparison with any others in efficiency, 
but in their conduct they shone above the majority. 
The soldiery of Europe seemed bent upon justifying, 
once and for all, the Chinese designation of Westerners 
as " foreign devils." Looting, rapine, murder and 
devastation followed in their wake. After Pekin had 
been entirely subdued, the inertia of destruction led 
them into private " punitive expeditions " into various 
parts of the country. In these, the Japanese (and the 
Americans)' took no part. The troops of both these 
nations were under the complete control of their officers 
and maintained the most perfect discipline. In bravery 
and military efficiency the Japanese caused all the 
Occidental experts to "take notice" and the diplomats 
to think some long thoughts. If a handful of troops 
showed themselves so efficient, what might the nation 
under arms be like? If the West had made its own 
comparisons, had not the East done likewise? Verily 
this Oriental Carthage must be destroyed. Japan must 
not be allowed to get so strong as to challenge the in- 
terests of Europe in China. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 55 

Thus the moves and countermoves on the diplomatic 
chessboard grew more and more complex. It was no 
longer the " Powers '* against China and against one 
another; it was the Occident against the Orient. The 
entrance of militant Japan into the game threatened 
the success of the whole policy of aggression. In the 
excited fancy of students of " welt-politik" whose 
knowledge of the subject had not been gained at first 
hand, and to whom all Orientals looked alike, Europe 
was soon to be at the mercy of Asia, newly aroused to 
self -consciousness, and possessed of the war tools of the 
.West. 

Germany and France therefore had nothing to lose 
by encouraging Russia to put down upstart Japan. 
England saw a chance to profit herself by utilizing the 
new militant power against her " hereditary foe " (des- 
tined, in the inconsistency of politics, to be her ally in 
19 14), and concluded the Anglo- Japanese Alliance in 
1902. Japan thus found that the immediate effect of 
her demonstration of military prowess was to make 
herself both courted and feared. 

By way of parenthesis let us note that the panicky 
fear of a " Yellow Peril " rests upon a fallacy which has 
only to be stated to be self-evident. This fallacy is the 
assumption that a people can be both barbarous and 
civilized at the same time. Ages ago, to be sure, Mon- 



56 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

golian hordes overran Eastern Europe, but conditions 
have changed since the times of Genghis Khan. Mere 
barbarians would stand no chance against the machine 
guns and trained soldiery of a modern state. But it is 
forgotten for the time being that for any people to 
compete with a modern nation in war, that people must 
be equally " civilized." For military ability nowadays 
demands not only the possession of modern arms, but 
much more, the possession of a capacity for organization, 
wealth, credit, a specialized commissariat, efficient agen- 
cies for combating disease, etc. In proportion, there- 
fore, as an Oriental people should evolve in ability to 
compete in a military way with Europe, it would be 
compelled at the same time to evolve in the accompany- 
ing features of civilization, — to become, in other words, 
a civilized state. And when it should reach such a point, 
it would be inhibited, ipso facto, from being the menace 
to civilization it might have been, potentially, before 
such an evolution began. For a member of the modern 
family of nations has as little freedom of individual 
action in comparison with a barbarian tribe as a man, 
the member of a highly organized social community, 
has in comparison with his brother of the jungle. This 
does not mean of course that an armed Orient may not 
in some future time challenge the supremacy of Europe 
in war. Let us assume an analogous instance. It is 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 57 

conceivable, for example, that war may occur some day 
between Germany and the United States. But it is 
inconceivable that the peasantry of Germany, the shop- 
keepers, bankers, students, and artisans, should simul- 
taneously drop their several duties in the complex social 
organization of that Empire, and in a frenzy of preda- 
tory migration, swarm across the Atlantic to invade 
America and attempt to replace our putative Anglo- 
Saxon civilization with a Teutonic one. Assuming that 
the Orient for centuries has been " uncivilized " in the 
Western sense (an assumption wholly gratuitous), the 
Occident never need fear the sort of peril that Kaiser 
Wilhelm so eloquently voiced. 

Events moved fast in the Orient during the first few 
years of the new century. Japan would only too gladly 
have delayed the climax, but she was like a man tied to 
a runaway wagon, who either has to run himself or 
fall and be dragged. Admiral Alexieff became the Rus- 
sian Viceroy of the Far East, and the Russian policy 
became more aggressive, more domineering, more re- 
gardless of outside opinion. Diplomatic intrigue, never 
absent from Korea, fairly subcharged the atmosphere 
of that unhappy peninsula. Not content with Port 
Arthur, the Russians began to set the stage for the 
acquisition of Masamphd at Japan's very door. More 
disquieting even, to Japan, was the ascendancy that 



58 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Russia was rapidly gaining over the Qiinese officials at 
Pekin. M. Pavloff, the Russian minister at Seoul, pro- 
fessed the most supreme contempt for the Japanese and 
all their work. In the face of all this, Japan was not 
idle. She bent every energy in feverish haste to prepare 
for the inevitable conflict. Every one in the Far East 
knew that the shock would come, except, apparently, 
the Russians. 

When war broke, the Japanese quickly established 
the command of the seas by practically annihilating the 
Russian fleet. From their near-by base they swarmed 
over Korea and into South Manchuria. Port Arthur 
was besieged, and the Manchurian armies began to work 
their way north along the line of the railway. Port 
Arthur put up a stubborn resistance, and the Japanese 
threw away many thousands of men in the assaults 
upon the various forts that crowned the steep hills. 
Eventually these fell, one by one, and Port Arthur for 
a second time became the possession of Japan. Mean- 
while the Japanese armies slowly pushed the Russians 
back toward the Siberian frontier with longer battle 
fronts and heavier losses than the world had hitherto 
seen. But all the while the former were getting farther 
from their home base and the Trans-Siberian railway 
was responding better and better to the strain put upon 
it, pouring in more Russian troops from the north. 



JAPAN COMES OE AGE 59 

Japan's credit was strained to the utmost. In spite of 
her apparently continuous victories, she began to find 
herself in a precarious position. 

The Far Eastern campaign, however, was very un- 
popular in European Russia, and internal troubles began 
to multiply at home which made the Russian situation 
equally difficult. Consequently, when President Roose- 
velt proposed a truce, both sides were glad to cease 
fighting. 

The people of Japan hailed this as a complete victory 
for their arms and, naturally, it would have been im- 
politic for their leaders to undeceive them. They 
looked for a great indemnity to recompense them for 
the huge outlays and sacrifices they had made. But 
the Japanese plenipotentiaries who came to Portsmouth 
to arrange the terms of the treaty knew before they 
started that they could expect no indemnity from an 
enemy whose territory was not even touched by the 
conflict. In the end, a line was drawn at the point 
(Changchun) where the armies had faced each other 
at the conclusion of hostilities. This line practically 
divided Manchuria into a northern half and a southern 
half. South Manchuria thus became the " Sphere of 
Influence " of Japan, while Port Arthur passed into her 
hands as the successor of Russia to the "lease." An 
intimate control was established over Korea, and a few 



6o JAPANESE EXPANSION 

years later the unhappy kingdom was to find itself 
annexed to Japan as an integral part of that Empire. 

It must not be forgotten that it was Russia's troubles 
at home that were largely responsible for her desire to 
stop fighting, rather than the complete victory of Jap- 
anese arms. But the masses of Japan did not know that, 
and they gave voice to loud indignation when they 
learned that there was to be no indemnity.^ As Roose- 
velt was identified in their minds with the stopping of 
the war, they quite illogically but not unnaturally asso- 
ciated America with the loss of their anticipated in- 
demnity. 

The attitude of the American people before and after 
this conflict is an interesting study in mob psychology. 
The mind of the American is rather emotional than 
logical and his instinct is to favor the underdog. With 
a mental picture of the relative sizes, on the map, of 
Japan and Russia, and quite ignoring the comparative 
efficiencies of the two armies and navies, Americans 
were almost unanimously and emphatically on the side of 
Japan during the war. This state of mind was but 
natural in the light of past history, for the most amica- 
ble of relations had existed between Japan and America, 
while at the same time Russia had appealed to us as the 

1 A certain allowance was made Japan for the expense of keeping 
Russian prisoners. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 6i 

home of oppression and the antithesis of every ideal 
that we most cherished. This pro- Japanese sentiment 
was abundantly fostered by the fact that practically 
all the sources of publicity upon which American news- 
papers depended were in the hands of Japan or her ally, 
England. 

Continental Europe could not look with equanimity 
upon the accretion of power on the part of Japan or the 
possible defeat of Russia by an Oriental country, and 
realizing that our position facing the Pacific gave us a 
peculiar interest in what was happening in East Asia, 
Europeans were quite unable to comprehend our atti- 
tude. This was because, as stated above, our point of 
view, unlike that of Europe, was dictated, not by reason, 
but by emotion. But it is dangerous to be the popular 
idol of an emotional people. Hardly was the war over 
when our enthusiasm began to cool, and, as is the way 
with enthusiasts, we went to the opposite extreme. 

There were several reasons for our change of mind, 
and, as usual, we were again, as a people, the victim of 
a press whose sources, if not tainted, were at least hardly 
unprejudiced. 

For one thing, Japan found herself in a difficult 
position with regard to Korea and China, a position 
that has not been without parallels in our own recent 
history. 



62 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

iWhen the cast of the die found us in 1898 in posses- 
sion of the Philippines, official Washington was non- 
plused by the problem of what we should do with 
them. In the beginning, President McKinley did not 
favor retaining the islands. But when the commis- 
sioners appointed to negotiate the peace treaty finally 
received their instructions, the President wrote : " With- 
out any original thought of complete or partial acquisi- 
tion, the presence and success of our armies at Manila 
impose upon us obligations which we cannot disregard. 
The march of events rules and overrules human action.'* 
So the Commissioners were directed to demand the ces- 
sion of the island of Luzon. 

But the imperialistic spirit of the American people 
had been kindled and there arose differences of opin- 
ion among the Commissioners themselves. President 
McKinley, never unresponsive to the pressure of public 
opinion, finally changed his mind and cabled the United 
States Commissioners to demand the cession of the entire 
archipelago. This was done, and the islands became our 
" property " against the vehement protests of the Spanish 
Commissioners, who were put in " the painful strait of 
submitting to the law of the victor." The sincerity of 
their protests need not concern us. The fact remains 
that in a brief space of time we found it expedient to 
act quite differently from our announced intentions. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE ^3 

It is father absurd, though not at all unnatural, that 
we should blandly forget all this and take umbrage at 
Japan only a few years later, when she revised her policy 
in a somewhat similar manner. During the six months 
preceding the Russo-Japanese war the diplomatic com- 
munications that were constantly exchanged between 
the two nations never failed to assert and reassert that 
the "integrity and independence of Korea" (and on 
Japan's side of Manchuria as well) was the one thing 
sought and cherished above all others. In the Japanese 
Imperial rescript declaring war upon Russia (after hos- 
tilities had begun) occur the words: "The integrity of 
Korea has long been a matter of gravest concern to our 
Empire, not only because of the traditional relations 
between the two countries, but because the separate 
existence of Korea is essential to the safety of our 
Empire." More than this, the Japanese government 
went out of its way to assure the world of its good inten- 
tions regarding Korea, in the Korean- Japanese Proto- 
col,^ in which Japan pledged herself to guarantee " for 
all time the independence and territorial integrity of the 
Korean Empire " and the " safety and response of the 
Imperial House of Korea." 

In spite of all this, only five years after the cessation 
of hostilities, Korea found itself annexed as a part of 
iPeb. 27, 1904. 



64 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

the Japanese Empire, and her country " administered " 
by Japanese officials in a way that left no doubt in the 
minds of Koreans and foreigners as to the meaning of 
the situation. So soon did Japan find her announced 
intentions " overruled " by the " march of events," 

To enter upon a discussion of the rights and wrongs 
of this change of attitude is not the writer's purpose. 
The Japanese have, of course, justified their actions as 
we did ours in the matter of the Philippines. Their ne- 
cessity, however, coincided in time with the natural re- 
action in America from our excessively pro-Japanese 
feeling described above, and we began to suspect the 
motives of the Oriental Empire more than we otherwise 
should have done. But not only did the press and the 
public revise their opinions suddenly and decidedly. Al- 
most at the same time the State Department began to 
show a quite different countenance toward America's 
former protege. 

With the advent of William H. Taft to the Presi- 
dential chair came Philander Q. Knox as Secretary of 
State to the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Knox 
was a corporation lawyer whose relations with " Big 
Business " were intimate, and his influence was soon felt 
in the Far East. When the Russians evacuated Man- 
churia after the occupation of 1900, one of the condi- 
tions arranged for with China was the opening of three 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 65 

ports to trade. To these three new treaty ports the 
United States promptly appointed consuls, and Ameri- 
can trade began to make a showing. The apparent im- 
portance of our trade was due to the general lack of 
trade credited to other nations rather than to the great 
amount of it in itself. The American Tobacco Com- 
pany, ousted from Japan, sought to create a market in 
Manchuria, with the Japanese government as its only 
competitor. The Standard Oil Company began to build 
up a profitable trade. We have done a good business in 
high-grade sheetings. But there has never been much 
in the way of general and varied imports, and of 
the importance of Manchurian trade with America there 
has been a great deal of misstatement and exaggeration 
in the newspapers and the speeches of politicians. 

After the fighting had ceased, but before the Japanese 
troops had evacuated South Manchuria, and while 
foreigners of other nationalities were strictly debarred 
from the province, Japanese traders swarmed over the 
country and, backed by the government, with its sys- 
tems of drawbacks and rebates, the important Japanese 
commercial houses, such as the Mitsui family, estab- 
lished a firm foothold. 

The American firms that had laid the foundation for 
a profitable business saw their prospects dwindling and 
began to bring pressure upon the State Department. 



66 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

The Japanese, while protesting their adherence to the 
doctrine of conserving the independence and integrity 
of Manchuria and Korea, had been equally prompt in 
promising to retain the " Open Door," into which Sec- 
retary Hay had thrust a foot at the beginning of the 
war. But the "march of events" seemed indeed to 
give good reason to believe that there was as little like- 
lihood of the maintenance of the " Open Door " in 
Manchuria as there was of its " integrity." 

Theoretically Manchuria is still a Chinese province. 
In the north, Americans not long ago established their 
status with reference to the Russians by refusing to 
deliver their passports to the Russian police for refer- 
ence, as one is required to do in Russia. In other words, 
they claimed to be foreigners, not in Russian, but in 
Chinese territory. In theory, the same thing holds 
south of Chang Chung. As a matter of fact, South 
Manchuria is to-day Japanese territory in a much more 
intimate way than Canada is British. There is nothing 
in the pompous phrases of the various state papers to 
indicate this, however. Nor is the status officially 
accepted by China. 

In 1907 Japan came to a full understanding with 
Russia regarding their mutual interests in Manchuria, 
and in an agreement signed July 17, the two powers 
mutually engaged to maintain the status quo. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 67 

The heart of the Japanese control is the railroad. 
Without the South Manchurian Railroad, Japan's 
occupation of Manchuria would amount to but little. 
Keenly realizing this, Japan, early in the game, secured 
•from China the treaty by which the latter forswears 
any project of paralleling the line or of establishing a 
rival. 

Many and detailed were the complaints that arose 
from Americans concerning the alleged violations of the 
" Open Door " agreement on the part of Japan. 
Finally Mr. Knox stepped in. With a blandness al- 
most Chinese, in assumed innocence of anything but 
the assured intentions of Japan to carry out her 
pledges, Mr. Knox proposed an easy way to guarantee 
to China the integrity of her Manchurian provinces. 
This was to neutralize the South Manchurian Railway, 
and to loan China $100,000,000 with which to buy it 
back. The money was to be raised by a joint loan to 
be participated in by the various powers. 

The proposal was received with bewildered astonish- 
ment, dismay, and indignation in Japan. When they 
had caught their breath, the Japanese protested that the 
war had cost them ten times one hundred millions, to 
say nothing of 130,000 human lives; that they alone 
had prevented Russia from occupying Manchuria to 
the exclusion of every other interest, and that China 



68 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

had been helpless to protect herself. Did ' any one 
imagine that the clock could be put back to the period 
before the war and have things again just as they were ? 

Very well, Mr. Knox had something in his other hand. 
This alternative proposal was to build a railway from 
Kin-chau to Aigun on the Amur River, — a line parallel- 
ing the South Manchurian Railway. Such a line, 
China was inhibited from building by the terms of her 
post-bellum agreement with Japan. The scheme was 
to be financed by the cooperation of the English firm of 
Paulings and an American group consisting of J. P. 
Morgan and Co., Kuhn Loeb and Co., The First Na- 
tional Bank of New York, and the National City Bank. 
On the assumption that Manchuria was still Chinese 
territory, of course no other country than China could 
offer valid objection to such a concession nor could any 
other nation offer objection except to China. 

This proposal amounted to a forcing of Japan's hand, 
and put her statesmen in a quandary. But in the end 
her face was saved by the British bankers dropping out 
of the agreement. Whether this action was due to 
pressure brought to bear by the British government at 
the instigation of her Oriental ally, Japan, has not been 
made public, of course, but one may surmise as much. 
The American bankers did not care to undertake the 
project alone and the matter was dropped. 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 69 

The net result of Mr. Knox's Japanese policy was 
nil from the standpoint of either diplomacy or of prac- 
tical achievement. An old guide to chess-playing used 
to have the rule, " Avoid useless checks." Mr. Knox's 
proposals seem very much like useless checks. He could 
hardly have anticipated a successful outcome to his 
neutralization scheme. And if his idea was to " show 
up " Japan to the world, it is hard to see what diplo- 
matic advantage could lie in so doing. 

Of course, if, as would have been the case with Russia 
or Germany or England, these Manchurian maneuvers 
had been merely the first move in a game in which they 
should be followed up by a display or use of force; if, 
in other words, it had been the intention, the soberly 
decided policy of the United States to become a partic- 
ipant in Oriental politics, as European powers are par- 
ticipants, then there would have been an explicable 
motive in the American action. But a democratic 
government like our own cannot undertake poHcies 
that are not supported by public opinion, and certainly 
public opinion in this country would never tolerate the 
use of the military arm of the nation to back up its 
aggressive commercial diplomacy. Without this inten- 
tion Mr, Knox's attempt was meaningless. 

But this does not mean that his proposals were un- 
important. On the contrary, their effect upon Ameri- 



70 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

can-Japanese relations has been most profound and 
permanent. They mark the end of the " elder brother " 
period. There still remain many thousands of the older 
generation in both countries who cannot forget the 
amicable relations that used to exist, or the attitude of 
disinterested helplessness of American officials toward 
Japan, that meant so much to the latter in her early 
struggles for a place in the Eastern sun. But from now 
on, America and Japan, as nations, can never again be 
on the same old footing. Each will always suspect the 
other's motives. Perhaps the situation could not have 
been avoided sooner or later. Both peoples merely 
have emerged from a period of national adolescence, 
with its natural enthusiasms, into maturity, with its 
cold practicality and its own selfish interests. Yet good 
feeling between alien peoples is a valuable political asset, 
and Mr. Knox's activities have done a good deal to 
destroy the former American- Japanese friendship with- 
out gaining any corresponding advantage. 

One immediate effect of the American proposals was 
to throw the two erstwhile combatants into each other's 
arms. A little over five months after Japan had de- 
clined the neutralization proposal, she concluded (July 
4, 1910)] an agreement with Russia to maintain the 
status quo in Manchuria. The next year, however, 
Russia began to extend her boundaries in the Sea of 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 7i 

Okhotslc, and Japan replied by dispatching cruisers 
thither. Russia offered to arbitrate the matter at 
The Hague, but Japan in turn proposed to concede 
the Russian demands if she could get as a quid 
pro quo the full recognition of her own claims in 
Manchuria. Russia consenting, the two powers, in a 
new understanding executed in 19 12, agreed to defend 
jointly their interests in that province. 

Summary 

The history of Japan's foreign relations during the 
second half of the nineteenth century is mainly that of a 
struggle for national autonomy, particularly in regard 
to the control of aliens in her own dominions (extra- 
territoriality) and the right to adjust her own tariffs. 
These rights the Western nations refused to concede to 
Japan until she had demonstrated her military prowess 
in the war with China (1894-5 J. During this period 
the "personal" relations between Japan and America 
we/e intimate and cordial. America was in the 
lead in granting to Japan her national rights and in 
helping her upon her feet. For this reason, Japanese 
learned to look upon the United States with especial 
friendliness. 

Following the Chinese war, in which the Japanese 
were overwhelmingly victorious, Europe began to fear 



72 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

for the success of the aggressive projects that the va- 
rious " Powers *' had undertaken in China, which looked 
to the ultimate partition of that country. The rise of 
Japan was viewed with misgivings. As a consequence, 
the European powers, especially Germany, Russia, and 
England, hastened to intrench themselves firmly before 
Japan should be strong enough to checkmate them. 
The direct result of this activity, particularly that of 
Germany in Shantung, brought on the " Boxer out- 
break " in 1900, in the quelling of which Japan showed 
herself to be on a par with any other country in modern 
warfare. 

The Boxer trouble gave Russia a chance to establish 
herself in Manchuria and to gain a preponderant in- 
fluence in Korea and even in Pekin. The impossibility 
of Japan and Russia coming to an understanding with 
regard to their mutual interests in continental Asia and 
the arrogant attitude of the Russian officials, who de- 
pended upon bluff and were convinced that Japan 
would not fight, led finally in 1904 to the war between 
the two countries. The earlier victories in this war 
were all on the side of Japan, particularly on the sea, 
but it is doubtful what the final outcome might have 
been. Internal troubles in Europe led Russia to accept 
President Roosevelt's offer of mediation, and the con- 
flict ceased with neither side really victorious. The loss 



JAPAN COMES OF AGE 73 

of an expected indemnity led to ill feeling toward 
America on the part of the Japanese populace. 

In order to gain what advantage she could, Japan 
hastened to root herself securely in Manchuria and 
annexed Korea. This was contrary to her announced 
intentions and aroused the suspicion of Americans and 
the antipathy of the United States State^ Department, 
under the temporary influence of " Big Business." As 
a result, impossible proposals were made to Japan by 
America which have been the cause of ill feeling and 
suspicion toward us, where only friendly feelings pre- 
viously existed. On the other hand, the activities of 
Japan on the Continent, which she has felt were neces- 
sary for her own protection and future, have done much 
to dissipate our previously extra-friendly attitude to- 
ward her. As a consequence, the end of the first half 
century of American- Japanese intercourse finds both 
nations on the point of abandoning the standpoint of 
international amity that has been so characteristic of 
their relations in the past. 

The feeling of gradual estrangement has been accom- 
panied in America by the fear that the rise of a strong 
militant power in East Asia may have in it elements of 
danger to our own commercial policies and aspirations. 
Particularly since the Spanish war our possession of 
the Philippines renders us peculiarly vulnerable to at- 



74 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

tack in the event of an international controversy aris- 
ing, and compels us to look toward Japan from a very 
different point of view than we should have had if a 
whimsical fate had not bequeathed us an Oriental 
problem of our own. 



CHAPTER ly 

AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 

The " Philippine Problem " occupies a large share of 
public attention at present, and rightly so, for few situa- 
tions that we have ever been called upon to face have 
demanded so much far-seeing statesmanship or have so 
put to the test our national honor and responsibility, 
concerning which we have such a good opinion. The 
ultimate solution of this problem will have most signifi- 
cant consequences for the future not only of the Philip- 
pines but of the United States as well. For with it is 
bound up the portentous " Problem of the Pacific," 
which is the occasion of much high-sounding and alarm- 
ing oratory, in Congress and out. 

In the latter connection, Japan of course comes in for 
much attention, and without doubt, in the event of a 
war with Japan, it would make a great deal of difference 
to America whether we retain our sovereignty over the 
Islands or not, and if so, to what extent. 

It is not my intention to discuss the pros and cons of 
the Philippine question with regard to our relations 
with the Islands present and future, nor the question of 

75 



76 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

their independence; rather I shall confine myself solely 
to such topics as have a bearing on American- Japanese 
relations. 

How We Got the Islands 

The Spanish-American war of 1898 is one of the most 
significant milestones in our national history, not so 
much because of the importance of that conflict in itself 
as because it opened the eyes of Americans to their 
place in the world. Previously, we as a people had 
been so preoccupied with home affairs that we had 
become provincial. The Spanish war with its unex- 
pected consequences shook us out of this attitude, once 
for all, and brought us face to face with world move- 
ments and world problems. 

The most unforeseen consequence of the war to the 
American people, as a whole, was the acquisition of the 
Philippines. To nearly every one, previous to 1898, 
the name was without meaning ; we hardly knew of the 
existence of the islands or of the fact that Spain had 
colonies in the Pacific.^ Of course the State and Navy 
Departments were fully informed regarding the archi- 
pelago, but when Admiral Dewey was sent with his 

1 Dean C. Worcester, one of the leading authorities on the Philip- 
pines and their problems^ relates that after his return to America 
as a member of the first Philippine Commission a good old lady at 
his Vermont birthplace asked him : " Deanie, are them Philippians 
you have been a visitin' the people that Paul wrote the Epistle to? " 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 77 

squadron to seek the Spanish fleet in Manila harbor, 
there was no other intention in his or any one's else 
mind than that of attacking an enemy wherever he 
might be exposed to attack. Yet there had not been 
lacking far-sighted students of world-politics even 
among the Filipinos (J. RizalJ who had foreseen the 
western expansion of the United States, foreshadowed 
in the occupation of Hawaii and Samoa ^ and had pre- 
dicted that the Islands would some day come under the 
sway of America. 

The Spanish in their control of the Philippines had 
pursued the same policy that they did in the two Ameri- 
cas ; that is, they had exploited the country entirely for 
the benefit of the privileged classes at home, incidentally 
extending the benefits of the church to the " heathen." 
Paternal and benign in the beginning, by the end of the 
eighteenth century this control had developed in many 
respects into a downright tyranny. 

As a consequence, before the war, there had been 
fomenting an active opposition to the rule of Spain on 
the part of some of the Christian races of the Philip- 
pines, which was on the point of bursting into open 
rebellion, when the coming of Dewey and the collapse 
of Spanish authority changed the whole situation. 

During the progress of the peace negotiations, as 
1 See LeRoy, " The Americans in the Philippines," I. 



78 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

already described, the idea of retaining the whole archi- 
pelago possessed the American people. The Spanish 
Commissioners hoped to the last for European inter- 
vention and purposely protracted the discussion. More- 
over, they protested that to relinquish both the Philip- 
pines and the West Indian Islands, while at the same 
time retaining the debt of the latter, would precipitate 
a crisis in Spain and force a resumption of the war, 
suicidal as such a course would be. Such an outcome 
was not without danger to America on account of the 
possibilities of European intervention. One power, 
Germany, was apparently not averse to such interven- 
tion. It was discovered, unofficially, that Spain would 
not be insulted at the offer of a cash compensation, and 
the feeling on the part of the Americans was that such 
a payment would be much less than the cost of resuming 
war. Twenty million dollars was agreed upon finally 
as the price for the transference of the whole Philippine 
group to the United States. Of course all that we had 
really captured by arms was Manila and its environs, 
and in the other islands were many thousands of Moros, 
Igorrotes, and other races who did not discover till some 
time afterwards that there had been a war or that they 
had been "sold." They would indeed have resented 
the idea that they had ever been " owned " by Spain or 
anyone else. 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 79 

As we look at these peace negotiations across the 
space of eighteen years, it is evident that the Spanish 
nobles were more than a match for the Yankees in 
driving a good bargain. And the Spanish cartoons 
current in 1898, picturing Uncle Sam as a pork-butcher 
obsessed by the worship of the dollar, acquire a quite 
unintentional slant of humor. 

The unforeseen dropping into our laps of a rich colony 
that many nations would have fought to obtain not 
unnaturally stirred the imperialistic spirit of the Ameri- 
can people. There has always been a minority in the 
United States, however, who looked into the future, and 
foreseeing the complications that must inevitably follow 
the participation of America in Oriental politics, believ- 
ing that the retention of the islands will unquestion- 
ably involve such participation, and failing to discover 
enough profit in the possession of them to justify the 
danger involved in keeping them, have opposed the 
whole Philippine program. 

These " anti-imperialists " found their hands 
strengthened by the Filipinos themselves. (Perhaps 
it would be truer to state it the other way round.) 
Before the American occupation, insurrection was well 
under way and the leader of the insurrectos, Aguinaldo, 
strove to get as much credit out of the fall of Spanish 
rule as possible. The Christian Filipino appears to 



8o JAPANESE EXPANSION 

have many of the attributes of the Latin-American. 
In both cases, perhaps, this is a heritage from Spain. 
Like the Spanish-American, he is much given to ora- 
tory, to intrigue and personal poHtics. If America had 
not so unexpectedly stepped in in 1898, it is not at all 
unlikely that within a few years conditions, in some of 
the islands, at least, would be comparable to those in 
Mexico to-day, inviting intervention, possibly by Ger- 
many, possibly by Japan, and annexation to some other 
country. 

The Filipino protested violently against being sold 
or traded as a chattel, and it cannot be gainsaid that the 
transfer for a money consideration of an alien land and 
its inhabitants from any country to the United States 
would have worried the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence or the American statesmen of the '6o's. 
It is hard to say how sincere the Filipino agitators were. 
It is much more certain that the American occupation 
deprived them of their chance to shine as saviors of 
their country from the yoke of Spain. 

At any rate, supported by the discontented element 
in the Islands and the anti-imperialists in America, 
armed resistance was offered to the Americans after the 
transfer had been effected, and for three years our sol- 
diers fought an inglorious guerilla war with the Fili- 
pinos. In the end the Islands were, pacified. The 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 8i 

whole situation has been complicated by the lack of any 
permanent policy on the part of the American Con- 
gress toward the Islands and their people. 

It is repugnant to the ideals of the people of this 
country to hold subject any nation against its will. 
The practice of exploiting a weaker race for the benefit 
of the strong is equally obnoxious. The fallacy of one 
nation " owning " another or profiting by such owner- 
ship is pretty well understood here too. Altogether 
there is a very general consensus of opinion that so long 
as we remain in the Philippines we shall do so for the 
good of the Filipinos, not for our own profit. Such a 
policy has not always been followed by other colony- 
owning nations. Wholly altruistic at first sight, in the 
long run, if successful, it will bear practical fruits. For 
the establishment of an independent nation across the 
seas, educated by American methods, with American 
ideals and every reason for friendliness toward the 
nation that has given them their chance, cannot help 
but redound to the commercial advantage of the coun- 
try which has played the part of a foster parent. 

But apart from this consideration we feel that it is 
our duty to lend every aid possible to a weaker people 
that chance has thrown upon our hands, and with char- 
acteristic thoroughness we have gone ahead. The his- 
tory of the introduction of American schools and school 



82 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

teachers in the Islands is too well known to need repeat- 
ing. The education has been practical in the extreme. 
The Filipino has learned the dignity of labor and the 
means of making a living. Most striking of all has been 
the success of the tactful American administrators 
among the wild Mohammedans or the heathen tribes of 
the hills. For the first time in ages peace reigns in 
districts where heretofore head hunting has been the 
only occupation. And the benefits of peace are begin- 
ning to be felt. Among all the many tribes of various 
origins and characteristics American schools have been 
established. One effect is becoming obvious. Hereto- 
fore no community of interest was possible where the 
population was split up into scores of groups, speaking 
different dialects. Now a common language, English, is 
beginning to effect a solidarity previously non-existent. 
Such a result would have been absolutely impossible if 
exploitation of the people had been the motive of the 
Americans. It would disappear as by magic should a 
policy of exploitation be inaugurated. In the opinion 
of Mr. Worcester, expressed before the Senate Com- 
mittee, considering the recent Philippine bill : " There is 
a great deal more English spoken in the Philippines 
to-day, after a decade and a half of American rule, than 
there was Spanish spoken after something more than 
three centuries of Spanish rule." 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES S3 

The American is not given, temperamentally, to 
counting pennies. Nowhere else in the world are chari- 
ties so lavish. Altruism costs money, and we expect to 
pay for the luxury. But the cost of the Philippine 
enterprise has daunted even the American. It has re- 
peatedly been stated in Congress that we have expended 
over a billion dollars in the Islands since our occupancy 
there. This again has been vehemently denied.* 

Hardly any two authorities agree on the cost of re- 
taining the Philippines. We may believe, however, that 
it is a sufficiently large sum. At any rate it approaches 
$10,000,000 per year for the direct expense of the army 
during a decade of more profound peace than the archi- 
pelago has ever known before. The House Committee 

1 Perhaps as dependable a statement as may be found is the one 
filed with the Senate Committee on the Philippines by Brigadier 
General Mclntyre, Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs. This 
statement covers the years 1903 to 1914 inclusive, and therefore 
does not include the $20,000,000 paid Spain in the beginning, nor 
the cost of putting down the insurrection. 

Quartermaster Corps $ 98,063,695.03 

Medical Department 360,553.35 

Engineering Department 7,574,946.84 

Ordnance Department 7,174,170.25 

Signal Service 538,006.35 

Coast and Geodetic Survey 1,947,379.82 

Congressional Relief Fund 3,000,000.00 

Philippine Census 351,925.50 

Total $119,010,677.14 

Yearly average (War Department), $9,475,947-65. These may be 
taken as the ultra-conservative rock-bottom figures. 



84 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

in charge of the subject reported in 19 12 that the United 
States government expends directly and indirectly ap- 
proximately $50,ooo,(X)0 annually on the Islands. 

The People of the Philippines 

The ** civilized " peoples of the Islands, exclusive of 
whites, number about 7,000,000, distributed among eight 
groups. Of these, the most numerous are the Visayans 
and the most cultured are the Tagalogs. All are Ma- 
layan in origin, although, in places, Chinese and other 
strains have intermingled. Successive waves of oversea 
migration appear to have struck the various islands. 
Each new wave seems to have defeated and driven back 
the inhabitants of the coast to the mountains of the 
interior and to have replaced them. An extraordinary 
diversity of tribes and dialects has thus resulted. Some 
of the islands are very densely populated, Cebu, for in- 
stance, having a population of 337 to every square mile, 
but little less than that of Great Britain. 

The islands were discovered by Magellan in 1521. 
In 1 584 one Miguil de Legaspi was sent to be governor 
of the Philippines for life. He proceeded forthwith not 
only to pacify, but to Christianize the people and met 
with extraordinary success, except among those tribes 
that had already embraced Mohammedanism (the 
present-day Moros) or were too remote to reach. So 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 85 

thoroughly Christianized did the northern peoples be- 
come that in 1677 the Filipinos themselves sent out 
missionaries to Siam, China, and Japan to convert the 
heathen in those lands. But the Japanese were little 
amenable to this process and tortured and killed the 
missionaries. The Filipinos thereupon canonized the 
martyrs and enshrined their memories in popular his- 
tory. Their attitude toward non-Catholics being pre- 
cisely that of the Spanish or of the inhabitants of Latin 
America, it has resulted that the Japanese are held in 
popular estimation, even now, to be little better than 
barbarians, an opinion that is not shared at all by the 
better-informed and more open-minded people of North 
America and Northern Europe. 

This attitude of the Filipinos toward the Japanese is 
an important factor to keep in mind in the present dis- 
cussion. At various times in the past, the proposition 
has been made that if the Philippines are a burden to 
the United States, the latter might sell them to some 
other country with a greater itch for territory and 
fewer scruples. England, Germany, and Japan were 
suggested. The rumor was revived on two occasions 
when ex-President Taft visited Japan. In both cases 
it was reported that the Filipinos were aroused to a 
frenzy of indignation at the idea of being " sold," par- 
ticularly to " pagan Japan." It is needless to say that 



86 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

there never was jany official basis for such an idea, but 
it is interesting to discover the reaction of the Filipinos 
toward it. 

The Chinese are much more numerous in the archi- 
pelago than the Japanese, and to some extent have 
intermarried with the Filipinos. Practically the entire 
retail business of the Islands is in their hands, as 
well as the greater part of the money. They have 
been characterized as the "Jews of the Orient," and 
the average Catholic Filipino has the same economic 
background for his dislike of them that the Catholic 
European has. 

On the whole, although the Filipino is a Malay, his 
racial antipathies are against the Oriental and his racial 
sympathies are with the European. 

The " non-Christian " Filipinos (including the wholly 
savage Nigritos, the semi-civilized pagan Igorrotes, and 
the Moslem Moros) are much less numerous, perhaps 
because of their persistent activity in head hunting. 
The Moros, moreover, have a very definite object in 
killing non-Mohammedans, at once the most pleasing 
and effective way of securing a safe passage to the Mos- 
lem paradise. The opinion has been expressed that had 
Legaspi not come three and a half centuries ago, the 
active Moros might have " Moslemized " the whole 
archipelago by now. These internecine and anti- 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 87 

Christian feuds are at present stilled by the omni- 
presence of the American rule. Should it be removed 
now, without question they would break out anew. 

The Resources of the Philippines 

The tropics are the regions of the earth in which 
Nature has been most lavish in her gifts to man. Rub- 
ber, coffee, cocoa, dyestuffs, and drugs, gums, sugar, 
teak, mahogany and other precious woods, jute and 
hemp, tea, tobacco, and many valued fruits, — these are 
exclusively or in large part tropical products. The use 
of them on the part of the inhabitants of temperate 
climates is constantly increasing.* The interest of 
Europe and temperate America in the tropics is there- 1 
fore well founded. And of all tropical countries, the \ 
Philippines appear to offer the greatest diversity of 
riches coupled with a greater accessibility than is the 
case with any other except the Dutch Indies. 

The archipelago is in many places very wild and 
mountainous and its mineral wealth is to a great extent 
still undiscovered. Yet copper, gold, lead, petroleum, 
zinc, mercury, antimony, platinum, and iron have been 
found in quantity, and some day the mineral resources 
of the Islands will be a conspicuous item in their natural 
wealth. That day, however, must wait upon the invest- 
1 See Benjamin Kidd, "The Control of the Tropics." 1898. 



88 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

ment of large amounts of capital, and capital will wait 
upon the permanent establishment of stable conditions. 
An exception must be made in the case of coal. In 
some of the islands, notably Batan and Pollilo, enormous 
beds of excellent coal are found. In the former field, 
government engineers have estimated that there are 
76,000,000 tons in sight. Nevertheless these sources 
are practically unworked, and nearly all the coal used in 
the islands is imported from Japan, with a small propor- 
tion from Australia. 

Yet it is in its agricultural wealth that the Philippine 
archipelago is most noteworthy, for the growing season 
is twelve months of the year and there is really no limit 
to Nature's supplies of this sort. No less than 665 
different kinds of hardwoods are found. Some of these 
are of rare and exquisite beauty when finished, and the 
Filipinos are being taught in the American trade schools 
to make high-grade furniture that compares with any 
produced in Europe or America. 

The chief export and most valuable product is hemp, 
which is the finest in the world for cordage, and because 
of its superiority enjoys almost a monopoly in the 
market. Much of this comes to America and a great 
deal used to go to Europe. It constitutes likewise the 
most important item of export to Japan, where it is 
manufactured into hats. Hemp requires a ** steaming 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 89 

climate," and a great deal of it comes from the wild 
Moro province of Mindanao. 

Next to hemp in importance is copra, the dried fruit 
of the cocoanut, which, before the great war, found its 
market chiefly in Marseilles and Hamburg. The aver- 
age annual export of copra is 115,000 tons, valued at 
about $11,000,000. 

Another valuable agricultural product is sugar, which 
however, is of low quality and finds most of its market 
in China. Sugar-cane growing is attended with more 
risk and demands more capital than almost any other 
industry now exploited in the Philippines. Locusts, 
droughts, and typhoons have proved heavy handicaps, 
and the large concerns that have recently invested 
heavily in sugar production have not as yet succeeded 
in making a striking profit. 

Tobacco is a product that in the minds of Americans 
is associated with the Philippines more than any other. 
Tobacco growing and curing was greatly stimulated by 
the Spanish. Great quantities are consumed by the 
Filipinos themselves, and tobacco forms but 4 or 5 
per cent of the total export. 

Rubber is a development of the future. In addition 
to the rubber and gutta-percha trees, there are several 
wild vines that carry a high percentage of rubber and 
are easily treated. 



90 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

The Needs of the Islands 

For centuries the interior of the large islands has been 
the haunt of head-hunting savages and the southern 
islands have been controlled by fierce and untamable 
Moros. Some of the same head hunters (the Bontoc 
Igorrotes) have achieved extraordinary skill in rice 
culture. Yet it is a fact that except in the densely 
populated island of Cebu the present population tends 
to huddle together in villages, leaving unoccupied the 
vast spaces of land between the settlements. The 
amount of arable land that is at present under cultiva- 
tion is but a fraction of what might be so utilized. This 
situation is doubtless a legacy from unsettled conditions 
in the past which made pioneering dangerous, although 
it may be due to a lack of ambition on the part of the 
inhabitants, for whom life is too easy. 

Before the Philippines shall have taken their place 
in the world they must have developed their agricul- 
tural resources to the point at which they not only 
supply their own food, but produce an excess to ex- 
change for the manufactured products of Europe and 
America, upon which they will always be dependent. 
At present this is far from being the case. Today 
large quantities of foodstuffs, particularly rice, are im- 
ported into the Philippines. The amount of these im- 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 91 

ports, however, is rapidly dwindling. In 1912, over 22 
million dollars' worth of foodstuffs were imported, 
although in 191 4 this amount had dropped to less 
than 13 million. This one item is indicative of the lack 
of development of the islands in a commercial way. 

Nevertheless the effect of the American occupation 
for a decade and a half is becoming evident. The total 
exports and imports have about doubled in that inter- 
val; and the imports from the United States have risen 
from 10 per cent of the total in 1901 to 50 per cent 
in 1914. 

The prosperity of the islands, in the main, will depend 
upon the development of their natural resources, mineral 
and agricultural, and this in turn will depend upon two 
factors: on the one hand, the investment of large 
amounts of capital, and on the other hand, an increased 
efficiency of the available labor. Both of these, but 
particularly the former, in turn, are dependent upon 
long-continued peaceful conditions. The timidity of 
capital is axiomatic. At the present time, and for some 
years, few, if any, large investments have been made 
on account of the uncertainty regarding the plans and 
purposes of the United States toward the Philippines. 
This timidity has not been allayed, either by the intro- 
duction of party politics in the present Philippine ad- 
ministration or the recent agitation in connection with 



92 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

the so-called Jones bill introduced in the 63d Con- 
gress. 

We may take it as demonstrated that the laborers, 
upon whose shoulders the success of commercial develop- 
ment finally rests, will of necessity continue to be Fili- 
pino, Hindu, Chinese, or some race that is able to with- 
stand a tropical climate. The American cannot do so, 
nor can the Japanese. As a laborer, the white man 
cannot exist in the tropics, at any rate not in competi- 
tion with the darker-hued peoples. Says Professor 
Benjamin Kidd in connection with the attempt to 
acclimatize the white man in the topics : " Excepting 
only the deportation of the African races under the 
institution of slavery, probably no other idea which has 
held the mind of our civilization during the last three 
hundred years has led to so much physical and moral 
suffering and degradation, or has strewn the world with 
the wrecks of so many gigantic enterprises." (This was 
written before the building of the Panama canal, which 
forms a conspicuous exception to the above statement.) 

One pressing need of the Philippines has been met in 
great part by the American officials in control. This 
is the opening up of communications, which not only 
enable the Filipino farmer to bring his produce to market 
or shipping point, but also bind the whole people 
together in a community of intercourse that they have 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 93 

never experienced hitherto. In a country of steep 
mountains and torrential tropical rains, of course such 
roads require constant care to keep them in condition. 

International Relations 
^■In the first flush of possession, the Philippine Islands 
appealed to many citizens of this country as a tremen- 
dous addition to our national wealth, — as a very val- 
uable asset. We have seen something of v^hat the cost 
of this possession has been, — the overhead charges, so 
to speak. And there has been gradually brought home 
to us the fact that, speaking still in commercial terms, 
they are a liability, not an asset. > At the same time we 
have realized that the only justification for our presence 
in the islands is the benefit of the Filipino, not of our- 
selves, unless we wish to make the Filipino one of our- 
selves, which is not a popular wish. %- 

The reiterated phrase, " Trade follows the flag," is 
not true. Trade follows the line of least resistance.* 
In 1 90 1 imports into the islands from the United States 
were only about three fifths of what they were from 
Great Britain and only half again as great as those 
from Germany. Even in 19 14 they were only one half 

1 A British student of foreign affairs said in Blackwood's Maga- 
zine thirteen years ago : " It is true that trade follows the flag. 
It is sad to be obliged to confess, however, that in the Pacific to- 
day, it is the trade of foreign nations which most successfully 
follows the Union Jack." 



94 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

of the whole amount. As for exports from the Philip- 
pines to the United States, in 1901 they were only 40 
per cent of those to England and in 19 14 they had risen 
to only two fifths of the whole export total. And this 
in spite of the fact that until the passage of the Under- 
wood Tariff Law, an export duty was levied on Philip- 
pine products, which was remitted in the case of exports 
to America. Moreover, on dutiable goods a rebate of 
25 per cent has been given in favor of the United States. 

From the wholly selfish standpoint of national profit 
we should have received enormously greater returns on 
our money if we had devoted the millions that have 
been expended in the Philippines to the development of 
commerce with South America or even with Europe. 
As a matter of fact, our experience with colonial posses- 
sions as a source of profit has been quite in line with 
that of England, France, and Germany. Of course we 
have our altruistic endeavor to console us. 

Apart from direct pecuniary gain, there are those who 
point to the position of the Philippines on the *' thresh- 
old of Asia," or particularly China, in the belief that 
we shall obtain an important advantage in the contests 
for the trade of that nation by such a foothold. The 
writer is quite unable to appreciate this point. Our 
trade with China consists in selling individual Chinese 
or Chinese firms, American products, particularly 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 95 

American manufactures.. None of this trade will ever 
go via the PhiHppines, nor will the islands nor their 
people ever be instrumental in increasing it to any great 
extent. It may, indeed, work out the other way. We 
feel that it is for the good of the Filipino not to subject 
him to keen competition, so that we have extended the 
Chinese exclusion act to the islands. The great anti- 
American boycott of 1906 was occasioned primarily by 
Chinese resentment at the administration of this same 
law. Its enforcement in the Philippines, for which we 
are responsible, may be the occasion of reviving the boy- 
cott and losing us still more trade. 

But the objection is at once raised : " Trade has a 
political as well as a commercial aspect. Our foothold 
in the Philippines will give us a base from which to pro- 
tect our Asiatic commerce. It is never claimed that 
they will be much of a factor in mere buying and sell- 
ing." This introduces us to the portentous phrase, 
** The Mastery of the Pacific." 

Few political questions have been more befuddled 
by shibboleths than those of the Orient and the Pacific* 
The Pacific is the largest ocean. Its "mastery" has 

iThe "Yellow Peril" is a conspicuous example. The awful 
menace of this phrase would not be half so impressive if the color 
were any other than "yellow." Unconscious association and sug- 
gestion often completely overshadow reason. Compare Havelock 
Ellis, " The Psychology of Yellow." Pop. Set. Mo., vol. 68. 



96 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

a Nietzschian flavor that is compelling. But let us 
analyze it. 

In time of peace it is hard to conceive of any mastery 
of an ocean except on the part of the nation that ships 
the most goods across it. It is the goods, not the 
nationality of the carriers, that counts. American com- 
merce, all over the world, before the European war, was 
great and increasing in spite of the fact that it was 
carried largely in foreign bottoms. The Japanese have 
recently awakened to the fact that their heavily sub- 
sidized Pacific steamship lines carry the larger percent- 
age of their freight, not from Japanese ports, but from 
Hongkong, China, to America and back, so that, as 
their subsidy covers a prospective loss, they are taxing 
themselves for the empty glory of carrying foreign 
goods under the Japanese flag! 

It is otherwise, of course, in time of war. The United 
States has discovered to its consternation that its trade 
may suffer from lack of American ships. On the other 
hand, there is no real analogy between Europe and Asia, 
the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is possible for England 
with her powerful fleet and the possession of Gibraltar 
and the English Channel in a measure to control the 
Atlantic so far as Germany is concerned. Such a con- 
dition would be out of the question in the vast expanse 
of the Pacific. The exploits of the will-o'-the-wisp 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 97 

Emden in the autumn of 19 14 are a striking com- 
mentary upon the inabihty of the great Japanese fleet 
to adequately patrol that waste of waters. No nation 
can dominate the Pacific, so long as any other nation 
can maintain a fleet there. And the Philippines, al- 
though an advantage to our fleet in the Pacific, are by 
no means a necessity.* 

The following colloquy at the hearing on the naval 
appropriations bill before the House Committee on 
Naval Affairs, December 15, 19 14, is interesting in this 
connection : 

Mr. Witherspoon. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a 
question or two. Commander, you speak of controlling the 
seas. Is there any nation in the world that controls the seas ? 

Commander Stirling. Well, I think England comes prob- 
ably nearer controlling it than any other nation. 

Mr. Witherspoon. They do not control the Baltic Sea. 

Commander Stirling. No ; I should say the Baltic Sea was 
controlled by Germany. 

Mr. Witherspoon. Does England control the Black Sea? 

Commander Stirling. Well, no ; her ally Russia does. 

Mr. Witherspoon. Does England control the Mediter- 
ranean Sea ? 

Commander Stirling. Well, her allies control it. 

Mr. Witherspoon. I did not ask you anything about that. 
I asked you about England. 

iThis is, of course, a consideration quite apart from the need 
of coaling stations at strategic points. 



98 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Commander Stirling. It amounts to the same thing ; yes, sir, 

Mr. Witherspoon. Is it not a fact that France controls the 
Mediterranean Sea? 

Commander Stirling. She has the greater force there. 

Mr. Witherspoon. And she put the greater force there for 
the very purpose of having control of that sea, ai^d England has 
concentrated all her battleships in the North Sea for the pur- 
pose of controlling that. Is not that true ? 

Commander Stirling. For the purpose of watching the 
German fleet. . 

Mr. Witherspoon, Well, she has got control of the North 
Sea, has she not? I mean England. 

Commander Stirling. She has control over the North Sea. 

Mr. Witherspoon. And she has it because she has got her 
fleet concentrated there. Is not that true ? 

Commander Stirling. Yes, sir; one reason. 

Mr. Witherspoon. If she had her fleet divided and a part of 
it in her possessions all over the world, she would not have 
control of the North Sea ? 

Commander Stirling. If she reduced her fleet so that Ger- 
many thought she would have an equal chance of success — 

Mr. Witherspoon (interposing). Has England got control 
of the Atlantic Ocean ? 

Commander Stirling. Yes. 

Mr. Witherspoon. What ships has she got in the Atlantic 
Ocean as powerful as our fleet ? 

Commander Stirling. Now, of course, that opens up a 
little — 

Mr. Witherspoon (interposing). Well, she has not got 
anything in there except some cruisers ? 

Commander Stirling. No, sir. 

Mr. Witherspoon. She has not got a single battleship in 
the Atlantic Ocean? 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 99 

Commander Stirling. I consider that control means so far 
as the belligerents are concerned. 

Mr. Witherspoon. I am not talking about belligerents; I 
am talking about the control of the sea. You mean by the con- 
trol of the sea the nation who has ships there powerful enough 
to dominate it? Is that what you mean by it? 

Commander Stirling. Yes, sir ; I consider a nation controls 
the sea that can send a dominant force into it. 

Mr. Witherspoon. That can do it? 

Commander Stirling. Yes, sir. She may lose control of it 
for a month or a week, but if she can eventually dominate it by 
sending a force into it, she controls the sea. 

Mr. Witherspoon. But if England could send a fleet into the 
Atlantic Ocean and thereby control it, she would not have her 
fleet in the North Sea, and she would not have control of that, 
would she ? 

Commander Stirling. No; against the world, against a 
combination, I do not suppose England would be considered — 
I will take that back. England does not control the sea against 
a combination where the nation who is against her — 

Mr. Witherspoon (interposing). She could not control the 
Asiatic waters, could she ? She has not any ships there power- 
ful enough to control it as against Japan? 

Commander Stirling. Against only Japan as an enemy she 
would control it. 

Mr. Witherspoon. Has she got any battleships ? 

Commander Stirling. No, but she could send them out there. 

Mr. Witherspoon. I am not asking you about that. I am 
talking about what exists today. Is it not a fact that no nation 
on earth is able to control but one part of the seas at the same 
time ? Is not that true ? 

Commander Stirling. Yes, sir; that is pretty true. She 
only wants — 



loo JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Mr. Witherspoon (interposing). So that this thing of one 
nation controlling all the oceans and seas of the world is what a 
high French authority said when they adopted the policy of 
controlling the Mediterranean, that it is a mere chimera? Is 
not that true? 

Commander Stirling. Yes ; but at the same time, with one 
enemy, if you consider that she had only one enemy in the 
Pacific she could control the Pacific against that enemy. 

Mr. Witherspoon. Well, that really comes down to this: 
That if a nation has got a more powerful fleet than any other 
nation, it can control that nation rather than the ocean. 

Commander Stirling. It can control the possible area of 
hostilities. 

"^If the control of the Pacific is a mere chimera, as the 
writer, for one, believes it is, then the possession of the 
Philippines is to us not only a liability in an economical 
sense, but likewise in a political sense. For, to protect 
j the archipelago with its enormous coast line against 
invasion would be a matter of stupendous difficulty. 
They would offer to Japan or any other putative enemy 
a vulnerable point to attack, as they did to us in the 
Spanish war.> While the loss of the islands, in the light 
of the facts just presented, would be a real gain to us 
from the standpoint of self-interest, their sacrifice in 
war would involve a loss of prestige that the temper of 
the American people would not tamely endure. 

What is the way out of this dilemma? At present 
there seems to be a confusion of counsel. We may cut 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES loi 

loose altogether; grant the Filipinos their absolute 
independence and let them shift for themselves. Yet 
those whose experience in the Philippines is most ex- 
tensive agree in the belief that it would not be long 
before present-day conditions in Mexico were dupli- 
cated. But there is no Monroe Doctrine to protect 
the Filipino (at least it is questionable if Japan's 
would extend so far from home), and it would not be 
long before some other great power stepped in and re- 
stored order. The Filipino would be in a worse plight 
than ever. The United States would have lost national 
prestige and an opportunity to render a service to a 
dependent people, and her citizens would have lost 
much wealth. 

We might, of course, as has sometimes been suggested, 
sell or give the archipelago to a nation of our choice. 
But such a course is out of the question for reasons 
discussed elsewhere. A protectorate is often proposed. 
The function of a protector is to protect. In what sort 
of a situation would Uncle Sam find himself " protect- 
ing " the adolescent Philippine nation against the con- 
sequences of its own bumptious acts, the control over 
which he had voluntarily resigned. Nothing, in the 
mind of the writer, would be so certain to involve our 
country in the perilous international controversies of 
the Western Pacific as to assume the responsibility for a 



102 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

suddenly freed Philippine nation given over to Its own 
devices. As a matter of fact, we need not announce 
such a protectorate. It would be inevitable, if the 
islands were given their independence now, on account 
of the predominant place that American interests have 
made for themselves in the present-day Philippines. 

But such a course cannot be considered. Another 
plan that has been mooted is to give the Filipinos their 
independence subject to a joint protectorate, the islands 
being neutralized by treaty with England, France, 
Japan, Germany, and the United States. 

Recent events have convinced the majority of Ameri- 
cans that such a treaty would not be worth drafting so 
far as Germany is concerned. And recalling the rapid 
changes of front indulged in by Japan in her continental 
diplomacy, many Americans feel that the same may be 
said of her. In other words, a treaty is a contract, and 
a nation that will not keep its word because it is to its 
disadvantage to do so thereby destroys the only asset 
that stands back of such a contractual obligation and 
makes it of any value. If a neutralization agreement 
were observed, it would only be because the United 
States stood back of it. And in such a case we might 
as well have the whole responsibility as the complica- 
tions incident to sharing it with others. 

It is the consensus of opinion that if the Filipinos 



AMERICA', JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 103 

were given complete autonomy at present under such a 
neutralization scheme, it would not be long before con- 
flicts of authority would occur between Filipino officials 
and aliens other than Americans, which might easily 
call for intervention on the part of the alien power. 
The United States would then be in a position either of 
taking sides with the Filipinos against the foreign power, 
or else of taking sides the other way round. In either 
event quite unnecessary and dangerous problems would 
be raised. In fact, any sort of a protectorate that as- 
sumes responsibility and at the same time that relin- 
quishes control (as would, of course, follow the granting 
of Filipino autonomy) would be dangerous and likely 
to place us in an equivocal situation. 

What the Japanese would do with the Islands 

We may now focus the facts noticed in the preceding 
pages upon the Japanese aspects of the problem. 

Let us suppose that, overnight, American rule in the 
Philippines were replaced by Japanese. That is to say, 
let us omit the uncertain and disturbing factor of a 
conflict that by force would bring such a thing about. 
Consider the fait accompli. In what situation would 
the Japanese find himself? 

In the first place he would discover that he was a 
" heathen " in the midst of millions of Roman Catholics, 



104 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

whose attitude toward him would be colored not only 
by the feeling of the conquered toward the conqueror, 
but also by the aversion due to religious prejudice. So 
far as the Japanese has had a chance to deport himself 
as an overlord in Manchuria and Korea, the prospect 
is not reassuring. The Japanese suffers from a lack of 
that sort of sentiment, conspicuous in the Anglo-Saxon, 
that inclines the latter to assume a fatherly attitude 
toward an alien or an inferior. His methods as a colo- 
nizer are rather more like the German — highly efficient 
but not wholly sympathetic. In Korea, where anarchy 
has been imminent for so long, he has felt it necessary 
to adopt strong measures as a deterrent to opposition. 
The Philippines, half conquered, would more than likely 
merit the same treatment in his eyes. But what would 
be the result of the adoption of repressive measures? 
We may help to answer this question by considering 
Formosa, which has been a Japanese possession for two 
decades. To-day the whole interior of this island is 
occupied by head-hunting savages. The subjugation 
of these has been an ever present problem for the For- 
mosan authorities. Each year demanded a greater out- 
lay until in 1908 the annual appropriation was nearly 
$1,000,000. Then the Japanese authorities laid out a 
regular program to extend over five years, beginning 
19 10. Seven million five hundred thousand dollars was 



AMERICA, JAPAN, AND THE PHILIPPINES 105 

appropriated. After four years' operations, involving 
16,000 men and an expenditure, so far, of $4,500,000, 
and hundreds of casualties, about one tenth of the pro- 
gram had been carried out. At this rate, if successful, 
the cost of subjugating the natives will be $45,000,000. 

In the Philippines, the Japanese would be most un- 
likely to follow out the disinterested policy of the 
Americans ; indeed they could not afford to do so. The 
cost of an army of occupation, in view of the peculiar 
disadvantages under which they would labor, would 
be many times that of the United States. Under any. 
circumstances, the Japanese control in the Philippines! 
would never extend beyond the range of Japanese guns. ' 
A few years of such conditions, and the roads built and 
kept up with so much care under American direction 
would be washed out and destroyed. The people of 
the islands are not an industrial community like the 
population of Belgium. It would be impossible to 
destroy anything that would prostrate the population. 
Outside of Manila and a few other cities there is nothing 
to destroy that would matter. 

Under such circumstances, and they seem to be in- 
evitable, on the premise of a Japanese occupation by 
force, what would the Japanese profit? >-The Philip- 
pines cannot be colonized by Japanese laborers any 
more than by Europeans. Any products that Japan 



lo6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

might need would of necessity be produced by Filipino 
labor. Japan would get no rice, for the Philippines 
annually import millions of dollars' worth of that staple 
from other lands. It has been suggested that the Jap- 
anese might make a government monopoly of hemp 
and rubber as they have of camphor in Formosa. But 
these two products would be procured with the great- 
est difficulty under a military occupation and their cost 
would be enormously greater than now. 
> It would be far more profitable to deal with the 
islands as a foreign power, encouraging the development 
of their resources in order that they might have the 
more to exchange for Japanese goods, than to attempt 
by forced control to increase such an output beyond the 
limits of a fair exchange. >C 

Above all, little development of the Philippines can take 
place even under the most peaceful conditions, without the 
investment of foreign capital. Pending such a develop- 
ment, the islands would be a useless burden to Japan, and 
the necessary capital she could never furnish herself. 
Sv Altogether no greater calamity could befall the 
Japanese Empire than to be compelled to assume con- 
trol over the Philippine Islands, so rich in potential 
wealth and so poor in convertible assets. These facts 
become much more striking when we examine in some 
detail Japan's economic situation. 



CHAPTER V. 
japan's economic evolution 

The Japanese like to compare themselves with the 
English, and their Island Empire to the United King- 
dom. Such a comparison has a certain justification. 
Both are relatively small island groups closely adjacent 
to a rich and populous continent. Each must depend 
upon a strong navy for national protection. Each is 
densely populated. So far as geographical influences 
are of significance, similar conditions may be expected 
to produce analogous results. One must not be too 
easily impressed by analogies, however, for the histori- 
cal background of the English and the Japanese and 
the mental characteristics of the two races are as far 
apart as possible. 

Before the period that Toynbee has called the " In- 
dustrial Revolution " (1760-1830), England was a self- 
sufficient agricultural country, growing her own food 
(in the seventeenth century her imports were only 
one fortieth of her total consumption, whereas now they 
are one fourth), and with her weaving and other indus- 
tries carried on in the homes of the workers both in town 

107 



io8 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

and country. This was Japan's economic status until 
a few decades ago ; indeed to a great extent it is today, 
for Japan is in the midst of an industrial revolution, 
that, mutatis mutandis, is very similar to what England 
has undergone. 

In England's case the transforming change was due 
in great part to a group of extraordinary inventors who, 
working all in the same period, perfected machines that 
very greatly increased the output of manufactured 
articles. At the same time there developed an oversea 
trade which brought enormous returns, and produced 
in England a very large supply of capital to be reinvested 
in industry. The social readjustment was painful and 
left many persistent ills in its train, but in the end a 
population essentially agricultural was transformed into 
one essentially industrial. Moreover, industry became 
wholly separated from state control and interference. 

In Japan the acceleration of social change has been 
such that the people have not had time to accommodate 
themselves to new conditions, and the state has had to 
step in and not only assume direction of commerce and 
enterprise, but furnish the capital as well. 

Japan as an Agricultural Country 

In spite of the fact that Japan is an extraordinarily 
mountainous country, her population is mainly agricul- 



japan's economic evolution 109 

tural- Nearly 65 per cent of the total population 
are farmers. When we find that the chief agricul- 
tural product is rice, mostly grown in flooded paddy- 
fields, and that only about 15 per cent of the land 
of the Empire is arable (only half of that paddy-fields), 
we may gain some idea of the degree of intensive agri- 
culture to which this product is carried. It is a char- 
acteristic of all provincial peoples to be more conser- 
vative about their food than about anything else. 
Rice is the Japanese staple, and it will be a long time 
before it is voluntarily replaced by a substitute in the 
national diet. Nevertheless the rise in the cost of liv- 
ing has been as keenly felt in recent years on the other 
side of the globe as on this, and there are an increasing 
number of Japanese to whom rice is becoming more 
and more of a luxury. The increase in the price of 
rice during the past ten years has been nearly 50 per 
cent, and it is a commonplace that the Japanese farmer 
is too poor to eat the rice he grows. This condition 
makes it difficult for the nation to depend upon imported 
rice to any extent, as the cost of transportation must 
be added to the price of the foreign-grown product. 
Often rice is mixed with millet or barley to make it go 
farther. Not infrequently these grains replace the rice 
as a staple. The north provinces are adapted to the 
raising of oats, and the annual crop of this cereal has 



no JAPANESE EXPANSION 

increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. Wheat 
is grown in considerable amount, although the abomi- 
nable quality of most of the bread sold in Japan is such 
as to offer slight inducement for any one to forsake rice 
for it except under compulsion. Nevertheless wheat 
and wheaten flour are consumed in increasing quantities 
year by year. In 19 13 Japan imported from America 
nearly $5,000,000 worth of wheat, over twice the import 
of 19 1 2, and nearly $500,000 worth of flour besides. 
Buckwheat, which is made into macaroni, and beans are 
also staple articles of Japanese diet. A large amount of 
wheat is consumed in the manufacture of soy (shoyu), 
the native sauce. 

Altogether the enforced attention to the cultivation 
of grains other than rice may result in modifying the 
national diet and in extending somewhat the percentage 
of arable land in the Empire. Indeed about 75,000 
acres of wild land are reclaimed annually. But this 
can by no means keep up with the great increase in the 
population.* 

The birth rate in 1904 and 1905 was 30.6 per 1000; 

in 1906 it was 29.1; in 1907 it was 33.2; and in 1908 

and 1909 it was 33.7. The death rate for the same pe- 

iPor many reasons it would be of great advantage to the na- 
tional welfare if meat could be made more of an item in the 
national diet, but the extreme poverty of the people precludes this 
to any great extent. Large amounts of seafood are of course 
consumed. 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION "* 

riod has remained nearly stationary, about 21 per 1000. 
This net increase in the population produces a cumula- 
tive effect. The population of Japan (excluding Korea, 
Formosa, etc.) in 1914 was 53,596,858, an increase of 
3,342,387 since 1909. The annual increase is now 
682,000 per year, although ten years ago it was but 
500,000. This increase, without doubt, is due in part 
to better conditions of life, together with the high char- 
acter of Japanese medical practice.^ 

Growth of Industrialism 

The consequence of this condition is apparent. With 
an arable area sharply limited by nature and a rapidly 
increasing population, one of two things must happen. 
Either the surplus population must migrate to other 
food-producing lands or else Japan must modify her 
national diet and buy her food of other countries. Mi- 
gration presents many problems and practical difficul- 
ties, the discussion of which must be deferred. To buy 
her food abroad, however, she must have the where- 
withal to pay for what she imports. Raw materials 
that may be exported are few in number and small in 

^It is of interest to note that at no time since i8go has the 
female moiety of the population exceeded the male. The annual 
birth rate of males exceeds that of females from 3 per cent to 8 
per cent, averaging, as a rule, a fraction over 4 per cent. 



112 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

amount.^ Circumstances, therefore, rather than national 
instincts have forced Japan into the ranks of the indus- 
trial nations, earning her national living by utilizing the 
labor of her millions of hands to increase the value of raw 
materials supplied from abroad, and then passing them 
on to other countries in the channels of foreign trade. 
The group of statesmen who have directed the affairs 
of Japan recognized this situation years ago, and the 
government has bent every effort to stimulate and foster 
industrial enterprise. This has been a much more diffi- 
cult problem than it would be in an Occidental state. 
It must be recalled that only a half century ago Japa- 
nese society was feudal, — a feudalism that embraced 
not only the military aspects of life, but even more the 
arts and industries. Foreign commerce was something 
to be feared and opposed. A modern factory was un- 
thinkable. Accustomed to look to their superiors for 
aid and initiative, no amount of economic pressure 
ever would have induced the people themselves to have 
embarked on industrial enterprise. The government 
therefore took the lead, and began to establish and sub- 

1 These are practically limited to coal and copper. The annual 
value of the total output of the former is $35,000,000 (1913) ; that 
of the latter $21,000,000 (1913). Although the export of both of 
these has increased greatly in the past two decades, the total 
amount is but a small part of the total export trade. (The export 
of coal in 1913 was about $11,000,000 and that of copper $14,000,000.) 



japan's economic evolution 113 

sidize all sprts of manufacturing ventures. Since the 
Russian war it has had an additional incentive to par- 
ticipate in any enterprise in which a profit could be 
found, on account of the pressing need of getting hold 
of all available revenue to meet the heavy post-bellum 
expenditures. This policy has resulted in making the 
national government a partner in various commercial 
undertakings to a degree quite unknown in the western 
world. Cotton and silk-spinning factories, cement 
works, glassworks, match factories, shipbuilding, brick- 
making establishments, and iron foundries have been 
inaugurated by a paternal government. Some of these 
have been colossal failures.* Other have been trans- 
ferred to private owners after a good start has been 
made. But such enterprises are fostered thereafter in 
every possible way, — by protective tariffs, transpor- 
tation rebates, bonuses, even the relending to private 
companies, at a low rate of interest, of money borrowed 
by the government abroad. 

In 1896 there were 7600 factories of all sorts, em- 
ploying 434,832 operatives. In 1905 there were 9776 
factories and 587,851 operatives. In 1913 there were 
15,811 factories and 916,252 operatives. The place of 
women and girls in the Japanese factory system is sig- 

1 The annual deficit of the steel foundry operated by the state is 
about $1400,000. 



114 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

nificant. In silk-reeling 90 per cent of the operatives 
are women; in weaving and cigarette making, over 80 
per cent ; in cotton spinning, over 60 per cent.^ 

The predominance of women in Japanese industry 
is correlated with the scarcity or total absence of the 
" skilled artisan " type of man, a point to which we shall 
recur farther on. The average daily wages of the fe- 
male cotton- factory operatives are 13.9 cents (gold) a 
day; those of men average 22 cents. The cotton-spin- 
ning factories run continuously, night and day, the 
operatives working in shifts.^ 

The government retains control of those industries 
which are of importance to the national welfare, such as 
dockyards, shipyards, arsenals, etc. In addition, the 
government, for financial reasons, has created monop- 
olies in some lines of business, such as the manufacture 
and sale of cigarettes, camphor, and salt. 

1 This includes only factories in the American sense. A large per- 
centage of the manufactured products of Japan is produced in the 
home and all the women and children of a family participate. This 
condition waa also true of England until the industrial revolution. 

2 These figures are from the OfiScial Report of the Japanese De- 
partment of Agriculture and Commerce and are for the year 191 1 
(the latest published). As the tendency has been for wages to 
constantly increase, the current average wage is doubtless a cent 
or two higher. The Japan Cotton Spinning Association compiles 
annually similar statistics, based upon reports from all the mills, 
and publishes the average wages for women (1911) to be 14.1 
cents and for men 22.5 cents. About two thirds of the operatives 
are paid by piecework and one third by the day. 



japan's economic evolution 115 

The Japanese Workman 

The success or failure of an industrial system depends 
in the last analysis upon the character of the human 
element involved rather than upon machinery. Japan 
can purchase machinery to duplicate anything in a Euro- 
pean or American factory. The success of the indus- 
trial system, however, must be gauged by the efficiency 
of the operatives and even more by the organizing ability 
of the executive departments. 

With respect to the last point it is perhaps too soon 
to judge. In advertising, the Japanese have been 
quick to imitate the more obvious devices of the West, 
particularly of America. But it remains to be seen 
whether they will be equal to the demands laid upon the 
ingenuity and creative faculties of the executive heads 
of big business enterprises, such as will be necessary in 
a successful competition with Europe and America. In 
pushing retail sales, particularly by means of itinerant 
agents, the Japanese are most active, resourceful, and 
successful. In the opinion of the writer they lack, 
however, the patient persistence of the Germans and the 
imagination and brilliancy of the successful American 
sales manager. 

The quality of the Japanese workman is much more 
evident. The traditions of Japanese social life are 



ii6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

responsible for the fact that in some lines Japanese 
workmanship surpasses that of any other people. This 
is particularly seen in the production of art-objects, 
including fine metal work, cloisonne, damascene, porce- 
lains, inlaid wood, ivory carving, etc. This perfection 
of attainment is a national trait, fostered by feudalism 
and one of its lingering survivals. No Western nation, 
except perhaps the French, can hope to rival the Japa- 
nese in this line. Yet this ability is curiously limited. 
The Japanese artisan can produce an inlaid wooden box 
of which the nicety of construction of its hundreds of 
parts is a marvel to an Occidental, but he is quite in- 
capable of finishing a scientific mechanism or instrument 
of precision so that it can compare with the product of 
a European or American workshop. 

In the production of works of art, time is no object, 
but in the savage competition of international com- 
merce, time is worth dollars. Now in commercializing 
her native industries, Japan stands a good chance to 
lose that artistic quality of her products that has largely 
created their markets. This is felt today in those 
artistic lines that have been stimulated by foreign de- 
mand. In ceramics, for example, one will look in vain 
for the old artistic qualities in the product of the big 
" factories " of Kyoto and Nagoya. The adept who 
knows the by-ways will find what he seeks in the tiny 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION "7 

workshops of potters that have not yet been " commer- 
ciahzed." If one wishes the finest embroideries, he no 
longer finds them in the big shops of the cities. The 
best work is done in the country districts. 

The Japanese workman as an artist knows no rival ; 
as a skilled laborer in the Western sense one might al- 
most say he knows no inferior. The amount of waste 
energy and waste time that is expended in putting 
through a given job would drive a foreign foreman to 
madness if he had an eye to the cost sheet. As a matter 
of fact the " skilled workman " type is practically non- 
existent in Japan. This limits appreciably the national 
capacity for industrial development and probably ex- 
plains in part the failures that have followed attempts 
to develop many lines of manufactures. 

Silk reeling, cotton spinning, and such other proc- 
esses as require not skilled effort but merely patient 
attention are, of course, successfully carried out by 
Japanese workmen (or more often workgirls). But 
the belief that the Japanese, given the machines, can 
be equally successful in all other manufacturing lines 
is quite unfounded. 

In another group of industries, however, Japanese 
success is marked. This involves not factory, but home 
production, in which the family group, old and young, 
work together. All the fancy straw matting, of which 



ii8 



JAPANESE EXPANSION 



in 1 91 3 we bought $1,500,000 worth, is made in this 
way in three provinces adjacent to Kobe. The myriads 
of cheap toys are similarly produced.. Even silk is 
still largely reeled in farmhouses throughout the coun- 
try districts of central and southern Japan. One of the 




Imports 



USTTTED STAOIES 

Exports 



[ imports ^j^ AMERICA NORTH & SOUTH 
(except U.S.) 



Imports 

ALih EUROPE 




Imports 

AIvI/ ASIA 

(except \ 
£bilippiues/ 



0- 
Exports 

Diagram of Japan's Foreign Trade — 1913. 

great problems facing the government — one to which 

apparently not much attention is being paid — is the 

training of skilled workmen in those lines of manufac- 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION 



"9 



ture that are alien to Japanese traditions, in which, how- 
ever, she hopes to compete with the Occident in supply- 
ing the rest of Asia. 

Japan's Foreign Trade 
Pursuant to the policy mentioned above, state-fos- 
tered foreign trade has steadily advanced. In 1890 the 
combined imports and exports totaled a figure that rep- 
resented only $1.71 per capita. By 1900 it was $5.48 
per capita. In 19 13 it was $13 per capita. The accom- 
panying diagram expresses the distribution of this trade 
for the year 19 13.* (The European war, of course, has 
rendered all trade conditions so abnormal that the quo- 
tation of statistics for 1914 would not be pertinent.)] 
^ The actual figures for 1912 and 1913 are as follows : 





Exports Imports 


1 


1912 


United States 

All America, north and south, 

except United States 

All Europe 


$ 84,017,030 

3,536,417 

56,928,067 

4,297,209 

92,452,373 
2,756,678 
2,600,533 

$262,426,952 


$ 63,253,847 

1,258,943 
101,247,690 


Australia 

All Asia except Philippines and 
Kuantung 


6,370409 
114,074,041 


Philippines 


2,627, ';6s 


Hawaii 


14,650 


Total (including other coun- 
tries) 


$308,258,154 



I20 



JAPANESE EXPANSION 



From this diagram it will be seen that Japan sold to 
all the world, except America, much less than she 
bought. Of the great factors in this international 
trade, the United States bought of Japan in 19 12, 25 per 
cent more than she sold to her, and in 1913, 33 per cent 
more. Furthermore, while Asia is a better customer of 
Japan than we are (to the extent of $8,435,000 in 1912 
and $27,555,000 in 1913), yet in those same years, the 
greatest that Japanese export trade has known, never- 
theless she bought of Asia as imports into Japan, in 
1912, $21,622,000, in 1913, $34,721,000 more than she 
sold to Asia. These differences have been maintained 
approximately, year after year, in spite of the annual 
increase of the total value of the trade. Their great 





Exports Imports 




1913 


United States 

All America except United 

States 

All Europe 

Australia 

All Asia except Philippines and 

Kuantung 

Philippines 


$ 91,868,612 

3,628,991 

73,320,864 

4,298,273 

119,424,371 
3,129,211 
2,486,071 

$314,965,186 


$ 60,959,364 

2,303,903 

109,704,487 

7,441,686 

154,145,655 

3,808,621 

45,088 


Hawaii 




Total (including other coun- 
tries) 


$363,256,960 



japan's economic evolution 121 

significance in another connection will be seen a little 
later. 

A detailed analysis of this trade would be quite out of 
place here. Yet some points stand out conspicuously. 

Considering first the imports into Japan, we find that 
in 19 1 3 these totaled $363,356,960. Of this sum the 
United States contributed $60,959,364, being exceeded 
only by Great Britain. This is more than one-sixth of 
her total imports. More than half of this is raw cot- 
ton, which in 19 13 Japan purchased from the United 
States to the value of $31,981,732. 

The Importance of Cotton 

Cotton is perhaps the most important single item 
in the daily life of the Oriental. Of the hundreds of 
millions of inhabitants of Japan and China, it constitutes 
the only material for clothing from January to Decem- 
ber, — one thickness in summer ; wadded and inter- 
lined in winter. The fraction of the population that can 
afford to dress in silk or wool is negligible. In Japan, 
thick cotton-stuffed futon, much like an American 
" comforter," form not only the universal covering for 
the Japanese bed, but the body of the bed itself. Japan 
is therefore a large consumer of cotton and cotton- 
goods. On the other hand, she is next door to China, 



122 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

whose heavy demand for cotton goods must also be 
satisfied. These two facts make cotton a very impor- 
tant consideration in Japanese commerce and industry. 

Now very little cotton is grown in Japan itself, and 
although experiments have been undertaken in growing 
this staple in Korea and Formosa, the climate of the 
former is not very favorable, and sugar and other crops 
are more profitable in the latter. All the raw cotton 
that is worked up into yarns and cloths in Japanese 
mills must be imported. For the decade from 1900 to 
1910 the total imports into Japan were $1,948,437,000, 
and of this $473,143,000, or nearly one fourth, was 
raw cotton. This percentage is increasing. In 191 1 
raw cotton formed 285^ per cent of the total imports; 
in 1912, 32 J^ per cant; and in 1913, 32 per cent. 

This large importation of raw cotton, ginned and un- 
ginned, comes chiefly from India, China, and the United 
States. Egypt contributes a relatively small amount, 
India, up to the present, has supplied one half, or more, 
of all the raw cotton consumed. American cotton is 
preferred because of its better quality, and until 1900 
formed 40 per cent of the total annual import. But 
since then, with an occasional exception, the price has 
risen until the cheaper Indian cotton has displaced it to 
a considerable extent. Chinese cotton is cheap, but 
harsh and of short staple. 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION I23 

The factor of transportation plays an important role 
in this trade. Indian cotton takes about forty days in 
transit, and its importation is facilitated by subsidized 
steamer lines between Japan and Bombay and Calcutta. 
Until now, American cotton has had to travel either 
across the Atlantic and via Suez to the Orient, or else 
(the more usual route) overland via San Francisco and 
across the Pacific. This requires rehandling, often 
storage en route, and the use of the most expensive 
transportation facilities. The time between Houston, 
Texas, and Japan is about eighty days, but may be much 
longer. There is always loss of weight on the road, and 
the transportation charge is a heavy handicap. The 
rate from Houston to Kobe is $30.24 per cubic ton, 
whereas that from Bombay to Kobe (deducting a re- 
bate) is 10.59 rupees ($3,48) and from Shanghai to 
Kobe $3.34 (=$1.67 gold).! 

It is obvious that American cotton must have char- 
acteristic excellencies to compete at all. " Chinese cot- 
ton is usually white, but does not possess any special 
luster, while most of the Indian cottons have a brown- 
ish tinge and both cottons are harsh. American cotton 
is softer and more lustrous and the addition of it not 
only adds to the strength but improves the feel and 

1" Cotton Goods in Japan," U. S. Department of Commerce 
Spec. Agt. Series No. 86, 1914. 



124 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

appearance of the yarn and enables the mills to obtain 
a better price." ^ 

American cotton therefore will always have a market 
if the Japanese mill owner can afford it. The Panama 
canal ought to work an immediate and profound change 
in the cotton situation and establish the supremacy of 
our trade in that staple with Japan. Recognizing this, 
the Nippon Yusen Kaisha S.S. line to Seattle will be 
reorganized after 191 5 and the service of those ships 
will thereafter be extended to the newly organized 
Panama line, for which a governmental subsidy of 
$4,185,765 will be appropriated for the next five years. 

Notwithstanding the great consumption of cotton 
in Japan, it figures also as a very important item in 
her export trade. An almost limitless market exists at 
present in China for cotton goods. In 19 13 Japan sold 
nearly $49,000,000 worth of cotton manufactures to 
China, over six times the value of the raw cotton she 
purchased from her. Thus a large part of American- 
grown cotton finds its way to the Chinese consumer by 
way of the Japanese factory. 

Another important item of Japan's imports is that 
of iron, steel, and machinery, of which she bought in 
191 3, roughly $40,000,000 worth, — Great Britain lead- 
ing in this trade, with America and Germany con- 
i^.c, p. 27. 



japan's economic evolution 



125 



tributing about 25 per cent each. Kerosene oil is an 
important item of import. Its use is widespread jand 
increasing and the oil fields of Northwest Japan never 
have been a very paying venture. The United States 
sells to Japan about $4,000,000 worth of oil annually, 
and the Dutch East Indies half as much more. The 
importation of wheat and wheat flour, which is mostly 
supplied by America, is rapidly increasing and reaches a 
value of over $6,000,000. 

Turning to the other side of the ledger again, we find 
a few items relatively conspicuous. The following 
table will show this for the year 1913: 



Items 


Japan Exported to 




U.S.A. 


Europe 


Asia 


Raw silk 


$62,703,000 

2,494,000 

158,000 

1,368,000 

4424,000 


$30,555,000 

9,236,000 

78,000 

354,000 




Silk mfg. (Habutaye) 

Cotton yarns and textiles . . 
Porcelains 


$ 3,393,000 

60,872,000 

125,000 


Tea 


Si^.ooo 








Total exports 


$95,498,000 


$73,321,000 


$122,554,000 



In the above table many important items are omitted 
in order to render more conspicuous the most important 
ones. Thus Australia and Canada are not mentioned, 
although Japan maintains a growing trade with both. 
A great variety of cheap manufactured goods, such a& 



126 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

clocks, matches, and umbrellas, is sold to China. It 
should be mentioned also that the exports to South 
Manchuria (KuantungJ, which are listed in the official 
statistics, are omitted on the ground that, whatever may 
be the diplomatic fictions still maintained, this district is 
really part of Japan and its trade is " interstate traffic." 
Ceylon tea is getting to be a very strong competitor in 
the American market ^ and of recent years has replaced 
Japanese tea to a great extent. The Japanese govern- 
ment, recognizing this, is now attempting, unsuccess- 
fully so far, to meet it by stimulating the development 
of similar (dark) tea in Formosa. A trade which is of 
very recent origin, but one that will without doubt 
show an extraordinary development in the near future, 
is that of cheap toys and favors. There is a large mar- 
ket for these in America at Christmas, Easter, Hallow- 
e'en, and other festivals, which until very recently has 
been supplied by Germany. The writer has seen go- 
downs in Kobe literally filled with thousands of kinds of 
these novelties. It only remains to create or enlarge the 
market in America. These goods are manufactured 
by the so-called " family industry " system rather than 
in factories, a method that has already been described. 

1 Over 80 per cent of the tea produced in Japan finds its market in 
America. The decline of the trade is seen in comparing the annual 
exports. In 191 1 this represented $7,189,000; in 1913, $4,423,000. 



japan's economic evolution 127 

The most striking item in this table is that of raw- 
silk, which constitutes more than two thirds the entire 
export to the United States and of which we buy twice 
as much as all the rest of the world. Raw silk com- 
prises nearly 30 per cent of Japan's entire export to the 
world. Many times and in various places the culture 
of silk has been attempted in this country, always with- 
out success. It requires a cheap grade of labor of a 
peculiar temperamental make-up in which the Oriental 
need fear no competition with the Occidental. The 
great value of this import is an index to our national 
wealth and luxury, for it is manufactured here into silk 
stuffs, most of which are consumed at home. In the 
manufacture of this raw silk into high-grade fabrics 
(other than habutaye) American mills lead the world, 
and it will be many a day before Japan can compete 
with us in the world's market in this line. 

Approximately, Japan sells annually to America 
about 25 per cent less of goods than she does to Asia 
(chiefly China) and over 30 per cent more than she does 
to all Europe. Her total exports to the entire world 
for 1913, totaled $314,965,186. Nearly one third of 
all the goods she sells, therefore, are bought i>X the 
United States. 



128 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

The Balance of Trade 

The difference between the total value of goods 
bought and sold by a nation in the channels of foreign 
commerce is known as the " Balance of Trade." This 
balance for many years has been against Japan. In 
191 3 the excess of the value of imports over exports was 
more than $48,000,000. In other words, Japan had to 
pay out that sum in gold abroad, instead of cancelling 
the debt with the account on the other side of the ledger. 
The distribution of this balance is interesting and sig- 
nificant. In the account with Asia, that balance was 
$36,000,000. With Europe the balance against Japan 
was almost the same, $36,500,000, It is only when we 
come to America that we find the situation reversed, for 
in the same year we bought of Japan over $32,000,000 
worth of goods over and above what she bought of 
us. This point has an especial significance in con- 
nection with future contingencies. 

Japan is the happy hunting ground of the well-to-do 
globe-trotter and the adverse balance of trade is con- 
siderably mitigated by the disbursements of tourists 
in Japan, which taken together with the remittances 
sent home by Japanese abroad (in Hawaii and Cali- 
fornia, for example) may in good years even up the 
account. An index of this is the number of foreigners 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION 129 

who land at Japanese ports during the year. This num- 
ber in 191 3 was 21,886, including over 4000 British 
and 5000 Americans. 

Of course an occasional adverse balance of trade is 
not to be considered a national disaster, especially if the 
amount involved is represented by industrial invest- 
ments that are later to bring profitable returns. But 
with a nation like Japan, carrying a very heavy per 
capita national debt and at the same time with an ambi- 
tious military program that diverts millions into un- 
productive channels, it is a much more serious matter. 

In the thirteen years from 1900 to 19 13, only twice 
has the trade balance been in favor of Japan (two and a 
half million dollars in 1906 and nine millions in 1909).^ 
The total of the excess of imports into Japan over ex- 
ports for the other eleven years is $376,085,000. 

Japan's Market in China 

The " awakening of China " has been much heralded. 
A decade ago when the German Emperor had his vision 
of an armed " yellow peril " this awakening was viewed 

1 The first of these was due to business depression of that year ; 
the second in part to the Imperial Boshin rescript enjoining na- 
tional economy. It must be understood that the phrase, "trade 
balance," as used above and as ordinarily used, refers only to 
"visible" exports and imports. Such an adverse trade balance 
may often be compensated, as in the case of England, by a favor- 
able balance of "invisible" exports and imports. 



I3Q JAPANESE EXPANSION 

with considerable alarm and European statesmen re- 
minded one another when too late of the virtue in the 
adage to let " sleeping dogs lie." This panic has passed 
away. It is realized that from the standpoint of na- 
tional aggression China was more like an unstimulated 
jellyfish than a slumbering dragon. 

But the awakened China has none the less a persistent 
interest for the rest of the world. Four hundred mil- 
lion human beings beginning (so we imagine) to throw 
off the shackles of ages of conservatism and adopt at 
least the externals of Western civilization, with new 
ideas, new aspirations, new wants, — what a market is 
this for the trade of Christendom ! A country of ap- 
parently limitless natural resources, almost untouched, 
with a population of unparalleled industry, — ^here are 
the factors to create the wealth that makes China a 
much-sought customer. 

The recognition of this condition has long dominated 
the field of international diplomacy. The possession 
of India and the need for protecting her long sea lanes 
to that Empire are responsible for Gibraltar and the 
Suez canal. To get at the Orient by another route 
has been the central problem of other European nations 
with oversea ambitions, and the mainspring of much of 
their foreign policy. It is this that impelled the Rus- 
sians to throw their 5000-mile railway across Siberia 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION I3i 

to the Pacific and to seek there an ice-free port, a policy 
that led eventually to the war of 1904. It was the 
quest for the markets of China that led to all the polit- 
ical undertakings of Germany in Turkey and the near 
East, the struggle for a " place in the sun " and ulti- 
mately the European conflict of 19 14. 

Nature has relieved two great nations of the necessity 
for this struggle. Japan is at the very door of China 
and America is across the ocean. Australia may be a 
factor in the near future, but her relations so far have 
been with Europe rather than with Asia. Compared 
with America, Japan has the great advantage of prox- 
imity and a certain common basis of written language. 
America has the advantage of great wealth and natural 
resources. What America sells to Asia is largely raw 
materials. What Japan sells is of necessity chiefly 
manufactured products. It is but natural then that 
Japan should consider herself the middle man or com- 
prador of the Orient and that she should seek every 
avenue to China's markets. In fact the dominance of 
this market is absolutely essential to that position of 
national prestige and influence which is her ambition. 
Her success so far has been very marked. 

The amount of the exports from Japan to China has 
increased year by year until in 191 3 they were about 
160 per cent greater than they were in 1902, whereas 



132 



JAPANESE EXPANSION 



those of the United States had increased by only 20 
per cent.^ Both countries show a sharp fall in the 
year 1909 due to the Chinese boycott agitation. Japan 
quickly recovered, but America has done so but little. 
The gains for Japan from 1911 to 1913 are phenome- 
nal, approximating $20,000,000 a year. In 19 13 this 
great gain (about two thirds of the entire American ex- 
port trade) is assignable almost entirely to increased 
sales of copper (increase 100 per cent), cotton textiles 
and yarns (increase 33 per cent), and refined sugar 
(increase nearly 100 per cent). The sales of cotton 
goods alone were over $10,000,000 greater in 19 13 



1 The following table shows the increase in the value of Japan's 
exports to China for the past twelve years. 

Exports to China (Including Hong KoNcy 





Japan 


United States 


1902 


$36,357,000 


$22,604,000 


1903 


47,359,000 


19,203,000 


1904 


48,572,000 


21,886,000 


I90S 


54,448,000 


57,596,000 


1906 


58,890,000 


33,327,000 


1907 


53,0x0,000 


27,677,000 


1908 


40,472,000 


26,672,000 


1909 


36,544,000 


20,549,000 


I9I0 


56,748,000 


16,160,000 


191 1 


56,336,000 


26,602,000 


I9I2 


71,482,000 


26,736,000 


I9I3 


93,765,000 


31,758,000 


I9I4 


97,824,000 


35,395,000 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION I33 

than 19 1 2. The great increase in sugar export, in spite 
of a heavy home consumption, is due to a strongly stim- 
ulated production of raw sugar in Formosa, where it has 
enjoyed government bounties, tariff drawbacks, and 
farm subsidies. Previously, almost all the raw sugar 
came from Java to be refined in Japan. Another item 
of great importance in Japan's China trade is that of 
small manufactures such as clocks, matches, lamps, and 
umbrellas. These things are luxuries for the moment, 
but quickly become necessities as the spread of Occi- 
dentalism continues in China. Suppose that education 
in Western conveniences had advanced to a stage at 
which the consumption of matches in China is one five- 
cent box a year for each inhabitant, — not a very ex- 
travagant prospect surely. Yet the sum total of that 
year's trade in matches would be $20,000,000, almost as 
much as America's total exports to China today. 

Of course this assumes that China would not begin 
to manufacture her own matches, an assumption which 
is very unlikely. It is more probable that before long 
Chinese matches would begin to compete in the world's 
markets with those of Japan and other countries. For 
the present, however, that contingency is a matter of 
the future. Certainly, just now, Japan's growing trade 
with China in the products of her factories seems to be 
outdistancing competitors. 



134 



JAPANESE EXPANSION 



Other evidence of the growing prominence of Japanese 
trade with China is seen in the great growth of her ship- 
ping. During the last half of the nineteenth century 
Great Britain dominated this trade and the greater part 
of it was carried in British ships. The last fifteen or 
twenty years have seen the gradual encroachment of 
German and Japanese interests until England's preemi- 
nence appears likely to slip from her. This result has 
been due not so much to the decline of British trade 
per se as to the fact that the extension of the Chinese 
trade, which has been rapid, has mostly gone to her 
rivals.* 



Japanese Finances 

Japan has been forced to levy upon every conceiv- 
able source of revenue to provide funds for her military 
and commercial enterprises. First, there is the land 
tax, running from 2.5 per cent to 5.5 per cent of the 
assessed value. This supplies about $4,300,000. Next 

^The tonnage of the shipping which cleared Chinese ports for 
the past ten years was as follows ; the percentages are those of ap- 
proximate increase: 



1902 
1907 
1912 



Great Britain 



3,627,364 
4,594,424 (34%) 
4,930,821 (6%) 



Japan 



1,223,601 
2,416,400 (50%) 
2,991,411 (25%) 



Germany 



1,023,77s 
1,291,067 (30%) 
1,310,494 (i^%) 



japan's economic evolution 135 

in importance is the income tax, on a sliding scale with 
a minimum of $200. The percentage of taxation runs 
from I per cent on the minimum to 5.5 per cent on 
$50,000 or more. It is of interest to discover that only 
thirteen individuals in the Empire have an annual in- 
come of more than $20,000, only 6y pay on $12,000,- 
and only 140 pay on $5500. Only seven out of every 
thousand make $1400 per year. Yet the income tax 
yields the government about $15,000,000 a year. 

In addition to these two excises there is a business 
tax levied under some twelve different headings; this 
yields about $10,000,000 more. Then there is a docu- 
ment tax on the " ad valorem " plan ; a tax on soy (a 
Japanese sauce) ; a tax on medicine ; a tax on liquors 
corresponding to our own " internal revenue " ; a tax on 
sugar (from $1 to $5 a picul of 433 pounds) ; a 10 per 
cent to 15 per cent special tax on silks and woolens 
and a tax on traveling. Lastly there is a tariff which 
is nicely adjusted to the principle of bringing in all 
that the traffic will bear. Aside from foreign books, 
fertilizers, and certain raw materials such as cotton, 
rubber, ores, rags, and hemp, that are utilized in native 
industries, everything on the list bears the maximum 
charge, subject only to the " law of diminishing returns." 
The income from the tariff is roughly from $20,000,000 
to $25,000,000 annually. 



136 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

In addition to the usual methods of taxation the 
Japanese government realizes a direct profit from the 
control of certain monopolies. These are three in num- 
ber: tobacco, salt, and camphor. In 1898 the govern- 
ment took over the control of leaf tobacco, requiring 
that all crops should be sold to it and reselling the 
product at a fixed profit. But the Japanese people con- 
sume incredible numbers of cheap cigarettes, and two 
or three Japanese firms as well as the American Tobacco 
Company (located in Kyot5) began to develop and 
control a very large trade in the manufactured article. 
The government, having embarked in trade, could not 
tolerate a competitor, and in 1903 a law was passed 
making the manufacture and sale of cut tobacco and 
cigarettes also a monopoly. The companies received 
an appraised sum for their plants and stocks, and in 
addition 20 per cent profit on a year's sales. The Amer- 
ican company, thus closed out of Japan, went over to 
Manchuria after the war and started a competition with 
the Japanese government. 

The second monopoly is that of salt, which was taken 
under control in 1905. The government does not con- 
trol the manufacture of salt, but only its sale. It is 
practically all made from sea water. The importation 
of foreign salt is discouraged and only allowed in special 
cases by permission of the government. For all Japa- 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION 137 

nese salt exported, a sort of bonus is paid the producer 
by the government. The salt monopoly is very un- 
popular. 

The third monopoly is that of camphor, which is one 
of the principal products of Formosa, although a con- 
siderable amount of camphor is also produced in Japan 
proper. 

These three monopolies produced a net revenue in 
1 9 12- 1 3 of over $30,000,000, which is approximately 
the annual income from this source. 

It is needless to say that a financial system which 
is compelled to resort to such extraordinary expedients 
in taxation is a heavy burden upon the people. Par- 
ticularly is it true that taxes on salt, kerosene, and cot- 
ton fabrics impose the heaviest load upon the poorest 
classes. The income tax statistics disclose the indi- 
vidual poverty of the Japanese compared with other 
peoples. But even this takes no account of the great 
numbers below the minimum income level who pay, 
nevertheless, indirectly, a heavy price for the privilege 
of existence. 

In 1905 two well-known Japanese economists pub- 
lished the results of their investigation of the national 
;wealth of Japan.^ They summed up their evaluations 

1 "The National Wealth of Japan," by E. Igarashi and H. Taka- 
hashi. 



138 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

under thirteen heads, viz., land, buildings; house fit- 
tings and furniture; domestic animals and birds; min- 
eral wealth; marine products; gas, waterworks, and 
electrical enterprises; shipping; bullion; joint stock com- 
panies and banks; goods in stock; railways, telegraph 
and telephones; navy. 

Considering how soon naval equipment is 
" scrapped," the last item ($90,000,000) might, perhaps, 
be omitted from the table. The authors subtracted the 
amount of the national debt ($202,708,000 in 1905) and 
arrived at the net sum of $12,357,130,369. As the 
national debt in 1913 amounted to $1,276,897,000, 
mostly occasioned by wars and hence not represented 
by a corresponding increment in the amount of the na- 
tional wealth, the above sum would be decreased to 
something over eleven billions of dollars. This would 
amount to approximately $201 per capita. The per cap- 
ita wealth of the United States, by comparison, is $1310, 
or over six times as great. 

With the burden of taxation growing yearly heavier, 
the cost of living has been rising equally rapidly. This is 
a phenomenon that is world-wide and is to be ascribed 
only partly, if at all, to local conditions in Japan. A good 
index to this is the rise in the price of rice. In 1907 this 
was $8.01 per koku (5 bushels), in 1912 it was $10.18. 

A few years ago a Japanese economist investigated 



JAPAN'S ECONOMIC EVOLUTION 139 

the status of what he called the " middle-class farmer " 
in Japan and published his results in a technical Japanese 
economic journal.^ They were rather startling. He 
found the average income of such a man to be $133.55 
gold per annum and the average taxes to be 17 per cent. 
The approximation of the bare necessities for living, 
this economist estimated to be $158.10, leaving a theo- 
retical deficit of $24.55. -^^^ I imagine that to a great 
many of the middle-class farmers in Japan there is a 
pronounced shadow of reality to that theoretical deficit. 

National Expenditures 

It is of particular interest to scan the debit side of 
the books of a nation so heavily in debt as Japan and 
whose bonds are held so extensively by foreigners. 
Has the borrowed money been invested in betterments 
of the whole nation or in remunerative industry or has 
it been sunk in the pit of military enterprise? 

We have already mentioned the paternal character 
of government enterprises in providing bonuses, sub- 
sidies, refunds, loans at sub-market rates and similar 
aids to selected fractions of the population on the prin- 
ciple of ultimately benefiting the whole nation. This 
is an expensive policy and one that has never before 

^Takahashi Hideyomi, in the Tokyo Keizai Zasshi, vol. 61, p. 116. 



140 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

been attempted on so comprehensive a scale. Its out- 
come will be watched with much interest by foreign 
students of history and economics. 

Somewhat the same considerations apply to the na- 
tionalization of railways which has been recently con- 
summated. The purchase of those important lines that 
had been built by private companies involved a bond 
issue amounting to about $250,000,000, but it is antici- 
pated that this will be paid off out of the profits and the 
account is not included in the annual budget. 

The ordinary budget expenditures total about 
$207,000,000 annually, of which about $58,000,000 go 
to the army and navy in the regular channels. The 
latter two also take about $33,000,000 a year from the 
extraordinary appropriations, making over $90,000,000, 
or nearly one third, out of a grand total annual expendi- 
ture of $277,000,000, that goes for the upkeep of a 
military establishment. It is true that the same pro- 
portion is maintained by Germany, England, and even 
the United States. But it must be remembered that 
these are rich creditor nations that may waste their 
substance as they will. 

This brings us to the complicated subject of the 
national debt, a full discussion of which would be in 
place only in a treatise on financial history. We may 
note one fact, however, that the curve of the national 



japan's economic evolution 



141 



debt of Japan has steadily risen, each year overtopping 
the last. In 1871, the first year of constitutional gov- 
ernment in Japan, the national debt was $2,500,000 or 
seven cents per capita of population; in 1890 it was 
$124,810,000 or $3.11 per capita; in 1900 it was 
$251,488,000 or $5.74 per capita. The subsequent 
changes may be noted in the following table : 

Table of the Totai. National Debt of Japan from 1901 to 1914 
WITH the Relating pee Capita Percentage 



I90I 


$254,234,000 


$5.31 per capita 


igo2 i 


262,113,000 


544 


« 


1903 


276,090,000 


S.6S 


« 


1904 


280,790,000 


5.66 


tc 


1905 


495,64^,000 


9.84 


« 


1906 


936,190,000 


18.45 


« 


1907 


1,108,862,000 


21.66 


« 


1908 


1,138,410,000 


21.45 


« 


1909 


1,291,402,000 


19.57 


« 


1910 


1,325,178,000 


19.77 


« 


1911 


1,276,833,000 


18.65 


« 


1912 


1,246,960,000 


18.05 


« 


1913 


1,272,540,000 


18.42 


« 


1914 (May) 


1,267,511,000 







In order to meet the annual interest on foreign debt, 
together with the annual unfavorable trade balance, the 
Japanese government is compelled to maintain a large 
gold reserve abroad. The gold thus hoarded at the 
end of 1913 (aside from a reserve of $65,000,000 kept 
at home to maintain the gold standard) amounted to 



1423 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

$120,500,000; $102,000,000 in England, $13^000,000 
in France; $3,500,000 in the United States and 
$2,000,000 in Germany. 

There is another side to this story, for if there were 
no compensating income to counterbalance the heavy 
outflow of gold, the drain would be heavier perhaps than 
the present system of finance could stand. We have 
already mentioned the amount of cash left in Japan 
by Occidental travelers, a variable but by no means 
inconsiderable amount. To this must be added a large 
sum that is annually remitted home by the Japanese 
abroad. The Minister of Finance recently announced 
that this sum amounted to $13,000,000 for 19 12. It is 
obvious that if a sufficiently large army of Japanese 
should be quartered on foreign soil, as it were, sending 
home the profits of their toil, the total amount alone 
might in time even up the adverse trade balance. 
Whether this would be looked upon with complacency 
by the foreign nations is another question. And this 
introduces us to one of the most vexing problems facing 
the Japanese people — the status of their nationals in 
foreign lands. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE " YELLOW PERIL " IN A " WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY " 

The dynamic view of history sees mankind in a con- 
stant flux, racial streams flowing this way and that, in 
great migrations through the years and the centuries. 
The clashes that have ensued when one wave encoun- 
tered another, when the occupants of a frontier terri- 
tory resisted the invader — these make up the tissue of 
historic narrative, which is chiefly concerned with fight- 
ing. These migrations began long before the dawn of 
history and have continued to the present and we have 
no reason to suppose that they will not persist in the fu- 
ture, for the inertia of the human stream is very great. 

Until comparatively recently, such movements have 
been slow and hardly apparent to any one generation. 
Nowadays, however, thanks to mechanical aids to trans- 
portation, population movements are so rapid and the 
results so startling that mankind for the first time feels 
called upon to look ahead and, anticipating clashes be- 
fore they come, to try to avert them. 

For many centuries, Asia seemed the bottomless well 
whence came these human floods. The Persian inva- 

143 



144 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

sion of Greece, the conquest of Southeastern Europe by 
the Huns in the fifth century, the activities of the Tar- 
tars under Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, 
whose hordes not only overran Europe but even turned 
to the East, subdued Korea and attacked Japan, — these 
are conspicuous examples of the pressure of Asia upon 
the rest of the world. 

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, European 
adventurers in their search for treasure disclosed the 
two Americas to conquest and before long India and 
the isles of the sea came under the sway of the Cauca- 
sian. In the last century Africa has been parceled out 
like a loaf of bread. 

It might almost seem that the impulse which Asia 
gave Europe from the East has been transmitted around 
the globe. At any rate, the beginning of the present 
century finds the European white man in control of 
practically all the lands of the earth except the populous 
regions of East Asia, — China and Japan. Against 
the rock-like conservatism of these ancient Asiatic states 
the tides of Occidental power have beaten up and dashed 
themselves to spray. 

The frontier of European civilization is the west 
coast of America and the island continent of Australia, 
and these lands face the Orient with peculiar interest, 
now that the Orient has wakened to the existence of 



THE '' YELLOW PERIL " I45 

the rest of the world. It is this situation that inspires 
those long-distance prophets who see the Pacific-Ocean 
the scene of the most significant human conflicts the world 
has yet endured. For it is no longer a matter of Europe 
pouring itself out over the rest of the earth. Rather 
Europe has come to a stop and must brace herself to 
withstand the shock of East Asia pressing out in its turn. 

The conditions that led to the comparatively recent 
domination by Europe of the New World, Africa, and 
Australia, were at the outset not those that have led 
to the great racial migrations of the past nor indeed to 
those of the present. It was not the pressure of over- 
crowding that led primarily to the discovery of the new 
lands and their settlement. Rather it was the lure of 
gold, the spur of adventure, the lust of conquest, or the 
promptings of religious zeal. Such motives led daring 
souls to forsake their old homes for the new. The spirit 
of such pioneers made possible the founding of our 
Republic, the astonishing development of its material 
resources, and the courageous vision that has made the 
Far West of America one with the East. 

Our latter-day immigration from the Mediterranean 
countries and from Russia could never have achieved 
a nation in such a space of time. These latter are the 
overflow, crowded out by pressure of circumstances at 
home, and they are very different in their psychology. 



146 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

The American immigrants of the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, and of the first half of the nineteenth 
as well, struck out into the wilderness and subdued it, 
whereas their present-day successors huddle in cities 
and save their pennies. 

Preeminently of the former type were the men and 
women who went to California and the West in '49, and 
their descendants retain many of their characteristics. 
A man of this type is accustomed to rely upon his own 
initiative and likely to assume the status of an overlord 
to " natives " or foreigners of a different caste. This 
feature cannot be omitted from a study of the problem 
of the Asiatic in California. The same thing applies as 
well to the white settlers of Australia and West Canada. 

The Experience of South Africa 

In India and China the population is so dense that 
the struggle for mere existence is extraordinarily keen. 
Partly on this account at least, we find in these countries 
a characteristic "coolie" class of unskilled laborers, 
accustomed to live on the cheapest fare and to do the 
hardest kinds of labor. Cheap labor of this sort means 
large profits to owners of plantations, and the presence 
of a large coolie class, by driving out the competition 
of the white laborer, leaves all the remaining whites in 
the status of employers and overseers. 



THE ''YELLOW PERIL" U7 

From the middle of the seventeenth century, when 
the Dutch colonized South Africa, until the era of British 
domination in the nineteenth, labor in South Africa 
was all done by black and Asiatic slaves. The British 
freed the slaves, and in consequence the labor problem 
grew constantly more difficult. Finally, in 1859 they 
decided to import Hindus. To-day the Hindu popu- 
lation in Natal is greater than the white, and they con- 
trol the majority of the shops and farms. A writer 
on the subject, after saying that the Hindu has driven 
out the white workman, since the latter cannot compete 
on the former's scale of living, states that " The Asiatic 
is worth less to the country than the white man he dis- 
places." It is estimated in Natal that the Oriental 
only contributes f 1/6/4 >^ a year to the public revenue, 
whereas the white resident contributes £30/11/4. 

The Hindu problem for South Africa grows daily 
more menacing. The Hindu is a British subject, and 
when he has finished his term of indenture as an imported 
laborer in Natal and expresses a desire to stay on instead 
of returning to India, he quite naturally fails to see why 
he cannot do so; why, in other words, a British subject 
in one colony loses his rights in another. In the early 
part of 19 14, the resentment of the Hindu broke out 
in the form of strikes and riots. The war has diverted 
public attention from this part of the world, but in this 



148 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

apparently irreconcilable conflict between the white 
and brown elements of the British Empire is found one 
of the most difficult problems that British Imperialism 
has ever been called upon to face. 

The White 'Australia Doctrine 

In the early days of the gold excitement in Australia 
it was difficult to keep white laborers on the ranches, 
and Chinese coolies were imported, but the consequences 
of letting in the yellow flood were soon apparent, and 
exclusion laws were enacted by the various provincial 
governments. The Kanakas presented even a more 
difficult problem, and it was not long before opposition 
developed toward the entrance of all " off -colored " 
races. The idea of keeping Australia a " white man's 
country " took early root. 

In Australia and New Zealand, perhaps because of 
the newness of their settlement and the lack of conser- 
vative traditions, the modern doctrines of the labor 
parties, including those of socialism, have made great 
headway. It is not too much to assert that politics 
in the antipodes is controlled entirely by the labor 
party. This does not mean that Australia is completely 
unionized, but rather that every issue is fought out as 
between labor and the rest of the community. The 
slogan of this party is " Socialism in our Time." And 



THE '^ YELLOW PERIL" I49 

it is not difficult to infer the attitude of such an element 
toward the question of the importation of coolie labor. 
In this they find themselves at one with the rest of the 
white population. 

But the Australian labor party has been more than 
short-sighted. Not only have they opposed the immi- 
gration of Orientals; they have also bitterly opposed 
the immigration of Southern Europeans as well. As a 
consequence the sparse white population of this huge 
continent is almost stationary, although it would appear 
that the strongest sort of practical opposition to the 
pressure of the Orient would be the filling up of the 
Commonwealth with assimilable whites and thus in- 
creasing the European population. For the condition 
of Australia to-day with respect to the physical subju- 
gation of the country resembles that of America a cen- 
tury ago. 

In fact, the arrogant point of view of Australians to- 
day is much like that of Americans previous to the 
Spanish war. But the world has moved fast, and 
whereas America then could bluff with impunity, Aus- 
tralia may see her bluff called at any time. 

Australia, like South Africa, is in a peculiar situation 
as a part of an Empire the majority of whose members 
are colored. The population and immigration question, 
being foremost in the minds of her statesmen, was a 



ISO JAPANESE EXPANSION 

determining factor in bringing about the consolidation 
of the various colonies into the Commonwealth at the 
beginning of the present century. In union is strength : 
and a united Australia could bring more pressure to 
bear upon the home country than could independent 
provinces. 

That the immigration problem was one of the chief 
motives for the establishment of the Australian Common- 
wealth is evident from the fact that the first two laws 
passed by the new Parliament dealt with this subject. 

These laws were original enough and drastic enough 
to merit special mention. They provided for the usual 
basis of exclusion of immigrants as paupers, criminals, 
etc.; but they provided also for a "literacy test," by 
which it was very explicitly stated that only such for- 
eigners should be admitted into the Commonwealth as 
should prove themselves able to write at dictation fifty 
words in any European language and sign them in the 
presence of the immigration officer. Thus, if there 
were any reason for excluding Germans, they might be 
given a passage in Spanish or Polish. The act was of 
course devised against Orientals, — Hindus, Chinese, 
and Japanese. It was explicitly promised, in fact, that 
it should never be applied against Europeans. This 
f^discrimination against the Asiatic implied in the de- 
mand for a test in any European language gave great 



THE "YELLOW PERIL'' 151 

offense, and in 1905 the act was amended by striking 
out the word " European." Accordingly the test may 
be appHed by requiring the dictation in any language, 
which may save the Oriental's face, but does not help 
him much, for the high court of Australia has decided ^ 
the precedent that " it is for the officer and not the im- 
migrant to select the language for the dictation test." 
That the Asiatic is aimed at, however, is obvious from 
the fact that but one Oriental passed the test in 1905 
and none has done so since then. The law was again 
amended in 191 2, but the dictation test is retained. But 
one quite unexpected result was that white immigration 
into the Commonwealth almost ceased, it being diverted 
to New Zealand, 

Since the recent military programs of the Japanese 
have been inaugurated, the Australians have become 
more fearful than ever. The expansive movement of 
Japan is viewed with what appears to be quite unneces- 
sary alarm, seeing how far away from that country they 
are. Yet the sparsely settled condition of their conti- 
nent is no doubt inviting to an over-populous nation, 
and the Anglo-Japanese alliance arouses misgivings as 
to what support England would give her dependency if 
a crisis should arise. 

This has been the prime motive of a change of policy 
1 In the case of Chia Gee vs. Martin, 



152 TjAPANESE EXPANSION 

with regard to national defense. Hitherto Australia has 
given a subsidy of £240,000 to the home country. This 
has now been withdrawn, rather to England's disgust, if 
one may judge by current English criticism. The func- 
tion of England's fleet for several years has been that of 
protecting Great Britain from Germany, British in- 
terests in the Pacific being left to her ally Japan. Such 
a plan has not suited the Australians at all, and they 
have set about building a fleet of their own.^ The newly 
begun fleet early had a chance to prove its usefulness, 
not to Australia but to the British Empire, for it was 
the Australian cruiser Sydney, it will be remembered, 
not the Japanese, that put an end to the activities of the 
Emden. It is worth noting, also, that the Japanese fleet 
was unable to prevent the destruction of the English 
squadron under Admiral Cradock off the coast of Chile. 
Situated as they are, the Australians have a very keen 
interest in the progress and completion of the Panama 
canal. Not only Australia but all the South Pacific 
will without question be immensely benefited by it. 

1 The Australian " unit " consists of one armored cruiser, three 
unarmored cruisers, six destroyers, and three submarines, represent- 
ing a total cost of £3,695,000. It is to be identical with the China 
and East Indian naval units. Before the project was begun £1,000,- 
000 was raised by popular subscription to buy a " dreadnought " as 
a gift to the home country. This money, after being collected, how- 
ever, was expended otherwise, one half going to assist European 
immigration. 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" I53 

It is likely that with their present independence of the 
mother country, Australia will before long enter into 
more intimate relations with America than with 
England. The Australian indeed might not be un- 
willing to extend such an entente beyond the domain of 
trade. For in the problems of the Pacific the United 
States and the Commonwealth have much more in 
common than the latter has with England. Such a 
feeling was evident when the American fleet made its 
memorable tour of the Pacific in 1908. Our fleet met 
with such an enthusiastic reception in Australia, ex- 
ceeding in fact the welcome extended to the Prince of 
Wales when he went to open the Commonwealth Par- 
liament, that England was astonished and a bit non- 
plused. Sir Joseph Ward, Premier of New Zealand 
from 1906 to 191 2, is quoted as saying quite flatly that 
'* Australia looks to America as her natural ally in the 
coming struggle against Japanese domination." 

The Australian standpoint is graphically put by a 
writer in the National Review: " The Australian fleet 
(when there really is such a fleet) will be found (when 
the day comes for defining the situation) to exist, first, 
for the purpose of keeping Australia a white man's 
country against all comers, and second (only second) 
for the defense of the mostly colored empire, . . . The 
British fleet is for the purpose of defending the British 



154 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Isles against the Germans. This is of minor importance 
to the AustraHan as regards Australia.^ What he wants 
to know, supposing a powerful Australian fleet is built 
and put under purely British command, which side the 
fleet will be on if the time comes to resolve whether the 
colored subject is a real yellow citizen or not." And 
again : " The white Australia idea is not a political 
theory. It is a gospel. It counts for more than reh- 
gion; for more than flag, because the flag waves over 
all kinds of races; for more than the Empire, for the 
Empire is mostly black, or brown or yellow ; is largely 
heathen, largely polygamous, partly cannibal. . . . 
In fact the white Australia doctrine is based on the 
necessity for choosing between national existence and 
national suicide." 

In my own opinion the white Australia idea, as 
embracing the continent, is doomed to failure on 
account of climatic conditions. Experience has shown 
pretty definitely that the white man cannot endure 
in the tropics as a workman. He may be the brains 
of a tropical population but not the bone and mus- 
cle. The colored races will inherit the tropics in the 
end. 

Now nearly half of Australia lies within the tropics, 
and never will be a white man's country in the sense that 

1 It would be a terrible mistake for Australia so to consider it. 



THE ''YELLOW PERIL' 



155 



white men will constitute the bulk of its population or 
supply the labor for its development. The following 
table gives some idea of this situation: 





Area Sq. Mi. 


White Popula- 
tion, 191 1. 


Queensland 

North Territory 

West Australia 


670,500 
523.620 
975,920 


605,813 

3,310 

282,114 






2,170,040 


891,237 



This is a concentration of roughly one person to 2 2/5 
square miles. When we learn, however, that 23 per 
cent of the population of Queensland is found in the city 
of Brisbane and 38 per cent of that of West Australia 
in Perth, the sparseness of population (about one man 
to 3 2/5 square miles) becomes more striking. There 
are about 100,000 aborigines in the whole continent. 
These do not count in " holding the territory." 

This enormous area is not today "effectively occu- 
pied " by any race. Some day it will be. Certainly not 
by whites, although if they are lucky they may domi- 
nate it. Nevertheless at the present moment Austra- 
lians will not consider such a possibility. Long ago 
Dr. Pearson, who in his " National Life and Character " 
first called attention to the " Yellow Peril," said : 
" Transform the northern half of our continent into a 



156 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Natal with thirteen out of fourteen belonging to an 
inferior race [Query: inferior from what standpoint] 
and the southern half will speedily approximate to the 
condition of the Cape Colony where the whites are in- 
deed a masterful minority, but still only as one to four." 

The Oriental in British Columbia 

Very much the same sort of phenomenon that has 
been described for Australia has been witnessed in 
British Columbia at the first impact of the Orient. 
The Canadian province, however, is handicapped in its 
actions for the reason that it is controlled in international 
affairs by Ottawa, and Ottawa is more responsive to the 
wishes of England than to those of the people on the 
western frontier. 

Like Australia, British Columbia is very sparsely 
settled, and as in Australia, too, the labor element is 
powerful. The first anti-Chinese law was passed in 
1885, allowing but one Chinese per ton to the ship, — 
a highly original method of limitation. In addition, 
a head tax of $50 was imposed. In 1901 this was in- 
creased to $100; in 1904 to $500. In addition, the law 
prohibited Chinese from working in factories or work- 
shops, although they might be employed in canneries 
or as domestic servants. This statute produced a 
curious and unforeseen result. Immigration, of course, 



i( -^vr T nk^rr t>i7t»tt '» 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" i57 

stopped almost immediately.^ The Chinese already 
within the province became increasingly important 
from an economic standpoint, particularly as domestic 
servants, in which capacity they are unexcelled. Their 
wages doubled and tripled. Mr. King, the Chairman of 
the Royal Commission appointed to consider the prob- 
lem, reported that " without organization, without 
expense, without agitation, every Chinaman became a 
unit in a labor group more favored than the most exclu- 
sive and highly protected labor union," 

When it came to the Japanese, and more recently the 
Hindus, the difficulties of the British Columbians be- 
came more critical, for the former are the allies of the 
home country, and the latter, subjects of the same king. 
In 1899 Great Britain concluded a treaty with Japan, 
granting full reciprocal privileges of residence, travel 
and protection. The treaty did not include all the 
Empire, India for instance being excluded, but Canada 
thought she saw a chance to cultivate trade with the 

1 Between June 30, 1900, and Jan. i, 1904, 16,007 Chinese entered 
Vancouver; between Jan. i, 1904, and June 30, 1907, only 121. 
Since then, however, the number has increased, as will be seen in 
the following table. In 1910 it was further required that each 
Chinese bring with him $200 in cash. 

1908 1887 Chinese entered 

1909 2156 Chinese entered 

1910 5278 Chinese entered 

1911 6247 Chinese entered 



158 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Orient, and, sometime later, enrolled herself as a third 
party to the convention, in exchange for tariff reduc- 
tions on certain Canadian exports. 

Again things worked out in unexpected fashion. 
Shortly after the Russian war, anti- Japanese sentiment 
began to stir in California, and at the same time wages 
began to fall in Hawaii. Consequently thousands of 
Japanese descended upon British Columbia, and within 
a few years have possessed themselves of two important 
sources of natural wealth, — the mines and the fisheries. 
Very valuable copper mines worth above $5,000,000 
are now said to be owned and operated by Japanese, 
and the product exported. The fisheries are almost 
wholly in their hands. In this occupation, it was of- 
ficially estimated in 19 13 that 10,500 laborers were 
employed, each one of whom earned from $500 to $3000 
a year practically all of which was sent home. It is 
worthy of note that foreigners are prohibited from 
either mining or fishing in Japan. Indeed, according to 
the law only British subjects are licensed to fish in Ca- 
nadian waters. But naturalization involves merely a 
three years' residence and the oath of allegiance, and the 
law applies only to the fisherman proper, not to his boat- 
pullers or helpers. Nevertheless there are over 3000 
such naturalized Japanese in British Columbia. The 
Japanese coolies take this allegiance so lightly that 



THE ^'YELLOW PERIL" 159 

the provincial government cqntravenes the Dominion 
lavvr by prohibiting the naturalized Japanese from 
voting. This disfranchisement has been upheld by 
the Privy Council at London, England, on the 
ground that the province has power to limit its own 
electorate. 

It is too much to expect that the whites, particularly 
the labor element, should view the rapid influx of 
Japanese with complacency. In September, 1907, a 
tramp steamer landed 1200 Japanese at Vancouver, 
and the event precipitated a riot. Agitators worked 
up the mob spirit and hoodlums attacked the Japanese 
quarter and began to wreck the shops. Finally the 
Japanese turned at bay and with knives, pistols, and 
broken bottles, counter-attacked so fiercely that the 
attacking whites took to their heels ! A few days later 
the arrival of a consignment of Hindus started more 
rioting. The Ottawa government took a decided stand 
and promptly reimbursed the victims. Strong official 
pressure was put upon the Japanese press to make light 
of the incident and both Japan and Great Britain found 
it expedient to "change the subject" as quickly as 
possible. A scapegoat had to be found, however, and 
this the English press discovered in " paid agitators from 
California." The United States was thus responsible 
for the whole occurrence, and the Yorosu, one of the 



i6o JAPANESE EXPANSION 

irresponsible yellow journals of Tokyo, expressed the 
belief of a certain section of the Japanese public, in 
attributing the affair to the weak-kneed policy of the 
Japanese Foreign Office in connection with the San 
Francisco affairs. 

The next year, the British Columbia provincial gov- 
ernment passed a bill enacting the " dictation test " in 
force in Australia and Natal. Three times has this bill 
been passed, only to be each time vetoed by the Dominion 
government. Yet feeling still runs so high that when 
the Japanese training squadron under Admiral Ijichi,- 
making its annual cruise, stopped at Vancouver, suf- 
ficient hostility was displayed to prevent a parade of 
Japanese sailors under arms. 

The Hindu is the newest problem for British Colum- 
bia. For with his outlandish garb and his caste preju- 
dices, he is far more exotic than the Japanese who gets 
into a " hand-me-down " and a " derby " hat as soon as 
possible after landing. When the Hindu cloud began to 
lower on the horizon, the Canadian immigration officials, 
never at a loss for original expedients, tried to ship these 
colored immigrants off to Honduras. But the Hindus 
naturally refused to go. Thereupon they passed a law 
providing that no Asiatics should come in, except by 
" continuous journey from the country of which they are 
natives or citizens and upon through tickets." Of 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" i6i 

course as there is no direct steamer connection between 
India and Canada, the law presumably accomplishes a 
very effective if somewhat disingenuous check upon 
Hindu migration. 

The complacency of the Canadian authorities was 
sadly shaken, however, when on the 23d of May, 1914, 
a Japanese steamer, the Komagata Maru appeared in 
Vancouver harbor with 350 Hindus (Sikhs) on board. 
Led by one Gurdit Singh, the company had chartered 
the boat and sailed direct from India. Arriving in 
Vancouver, they asserted their rights as British subjects 
to enter British dominions. 

Faced by this emergency, the Canadian authorities 
dropped euphemisms and flatly refused to allow their 
fellow citizens from the Orient to land. In imitation 
of the suffragettes the Hindus began a " hunger strike," 
but the Canadians were unimpressed and the strike 
was abandoned. Threats were made to burn the ship, 
in the belief that the Canadians would rescue the pas- 
sengers, but a lingering doubt as to whether the former 
might see it that way caused the project to be aban- 
doned. Meanwhile the matter came before the Court 
and in July a decision was rendered against the Hindus. 
Still the Komagata Maru lay in the harbor and refused 
to go. Finally, under the guns of a Canadian war 
vessel (the Rainbow), she was towed to sea and told to 



i62 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

leave. This suggests the unsatisfactory method that 
metropolitan police not infrequently employ toward 
members of the vagrant class. 

The Hindu in the United States has not risen to the 
height of a problem. Yet we could hardly look with 
indifference upon the immigration of any considerable 
number of Hindus into Canada. For if we should 
enact exclusion laws against them as we have against 
the Chinese, yet, should they be given free access to 
Canada, on the plea of their British citizenship, it 
would be a most difficult problem to keep them 
from filtering across the border into the United 
States, introducing one more racial problem for our 
distracted people to solve. 

The 'Asiatic in California 

In our own country very much the same history is 
to be related. The chronicle of the early contact of 
California with the Oriental and the consequent reac- 
tion is quite like that of British Columbia, California's 
experiences of course antedated those of the Cana- 
dian province, but in each case the Chinese were first 
invited, then repulsed at the behest of organized labor, 
and in each case the vacuum thus created was filled by 
the Japanese, producing a greater problem still. 

The tale of our treatment of the Chinese is not a 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 163 

pretty one considering the high moral tone of our long 
diplomatic intercourse with China. ^ 

In the early days of the gold excitement, there were 
no candidates for jobs as cooks, or in other menial em- 
ployment. When the Chinese filled such places, they did 
not displace any white labor at all. When the Pacific 
railroad was building, it was absolutely necessary to 
import about 3000 Chinese workmen in order to com- 
plete the road within the time allowed by Congress. 

The business depression that came in the '70's brought 
together a great number of discontented men, out of 
work, and the famous " sand-lot " agitation began. 
The Chinese and the plutocrats were picked out by the 
" Kearneyite " agitators as the enemies of the American 
workman. Several exclusion bills of various sorts were 
proposed in Congress, one of which was passed, and 
vetoed by President Hayes, and another one later by 
President Arthur. Meanwhile California submitted 
the question to a popular vote, — one of the earliest 
instances of the referendum in American politics — 
and out of practically the entire vote of the state there 
were 154,638 for exclusion and 883 against. In the 
face of this unanimity of sentiment, after a varied 
experience, an exclusion act was passed in 1882. This 

^The interested reader will find a complete and dispassionate 
account in Dr. M. R. Coolidge's "Chinese Immigration." 



1 64 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

first act was not difficult to evade and did not satisfy 
the West. In various places, anti-Chinese riots broke 
out. One in particular at Rock Springs, Wyoming, 
partook of the nature of a " Boxer " outbreak, the 
Chinese being hunted and shot " like antelopes." * 
In 1892 the Geary Act was framed, which not only ex- 
cluded the Chinese, but provided for the most stringent 
regulations concerning the methods of its administra- 
tion. This law was to be in force ten years, and in 1902 
it was reenacted for an indefinite period. The act was 
later extended to include Hawaii, and likewise, by Gen- 
eral Otis, to include the Philippine Islands. 

It was not the exclusion act in itself that gave so 
much offense to China as the method of administering 
it. Incoming Chinese of the exempt classes — mer- 
chants, students, and travelers — were treated almost 
as criminals. Things reached a climax at the St. Louis 
World's Fair in 1904. The Chinese exhibitors at the 
Exposition, the invited guests of the nation, were forced 
to endure a situation beside which the lot of the Filipino 
savages on exhibition was an enviable one. The tales 
reported by these returning travelers no doubt lost 
nothing in the telling. They were the last straw, and 
precipitated the great anti-American boycott, in which 

1 Some time later Congress voluntarily paid China an indemnity 
for this outrage. 



THE "yellow peril" 165 

American trade and American interests in China suf- 
fered so heavily in 1906-8. 

But however much of unnecessary severity and lack 
of tact may have attended the administration of our 
Chinese exclusion laws, they have been, at any rate, 
effective. The Chinese problem, unless we reopen it, 
is no longer a problem. Chinese house servants in the 
Far West have anything but the financial status of 
" cheap labor." Other races are employed only by those 
who cannot afford Chinese. As has been the experience 
of British Columbia, the success of Chinese exclusion 
created a sort of vacuum in the labor market. This 
vacuum the Japanese rushed in to fill and another prob- 
lem was hatched. 

In 1880 there were but 86 Japanese in all California. 
The increase, year by year, is seen in the table on page 
166 (taken from Kawakami's " American- Japanese Re- 
lations "). From 1902 on the figures include immigra- 
tion into Hawaii, which explains the sudden jump. But 
as great numbers of these immigrants merely used Ha- 
waii as a stepping stone to California, the figures are not 
highly misleading. In the summer of 1907 the famous 
** gentleman's agreement " was entered into between Ja- 
pan and America, by which Japan voluntarily agreed to 
cease giving passports to Japanese of the workman class 
for the purpose of coming to this country. Thus the ex- 



i66 



JAPANESE EXPANSION 



elusion of Japanese immigrants at present rests not upon 
our own statutes, as in the case of the Chinese, nor upon 
a treaty mutually binding, but upon the goodwill of 
Japan. Officially, such immigration has ceased alto- 
gether since 1907. Probably it has really ceased to a 



Year 


Japanese 
Immigrants 


Year 


Japanese 
Immigrants 


1881 


II 


1894 


1,831 


1882 


5 


1895 


1,150 


1883 


27 


1896 


1,110 


1884 


20 


1897 


1,526 


188s 


49 


1898 


2,230 


1886 


194 


1899 


2,844 


1887 


229 


1900 


12,635 


1888 


404 


1901 


5,269 


1889 1 


640 


1902 


14,270 


1890 


691 


1903 


19,968 


1891 


1 136 


1904 


14,264 


1892 


1498 


190S 


10,331 


1893 


1380 


1906 


13,835 






1907 


30,226 



large extent. But the writer spent the summer of 19 13 
in the Santa Clara valley and talked with numbers of 
Japanese workers in the strawberry fields. A great 
many of these, according to their own statements, had 
been but a few months in America. His questions as to 
how they had got into California were evasively answered. 
There is little doubt that the Japanese government 
is sincere in its attempt to limit the immigration of its 



THE *' YELLOW PERIL" 167 

citizens to the United States, although the real reason 
has not been dwelt upon. Of course Japan with all her 
present domestic difficulties is not desirous of creating 
an occasion for racial collision in America. But she is 
more concerned with saving her face by not giving any 
opportunity for discriminatory treatment. Above all, 
and this is the chief consideration, she must maintain 
friendly relations with Great Britain. Whether the 
Anglo- Japanese alliance would stand the strain of an 
immigration conflict in British Columbia is a question 
better avoided than answered. And Japanese policy 
must be consistent with respect to the whole west coast 
of America. What will happen to this alliance in the 
readjustments certain to follow the World War no one 
can say, but if the Anglo- Japanese Alliance gives place 
to a Japanese-Russian entente, as is not at all unlikely, 
then the reason for maintaining such a " gentleman's 
agreement " may no longer hold. 

The Japanese immigrants in rural California tend to 
hang together in groups, as is of course natural, since 
they speak little or no English and are not too warmly 
welcomed by the whites. On the one hand they hire 
themselves out on a contract system, particularly to the 
orchardists, who complain that they have no sense of the 
sanctity of contracts. In work that requires squatting, 
such as the picking of strawberries or the cultivation of 



i68 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

sugar beets, they have no equals in efficiency. They 
are not content long to hire out, however. When they 
have acquainted themselves with the local situation, 
they will lease a small farm, often at a high figure, and 
start in on their own hook. Others follow. " Gresh- 
am's law " begins to operate and the whites move out. 
Leaseholds become freeholds, and a permanent Asiatic 
nucleus becomes established. In this way they get a 
monopoly of certain products. In Southern California 
the celery and truck crops are chiefly in the hands of the 
Japanese; in the Santa Clara valley, the berry crop. 
Some of the richest and most prosperous districts of 
California (not necessarily sparsely settled regions) have 
settled up with Japanese until the entire complexion of 
the region has changed. Fresno and the Vaca valley 
are notorious examples. It is stated in the Twelfth 
Biennial Report of the California Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics that " ninety per cent of all the people met, walk- 
ing or driving on all the country roads around Vacaville, 
are Japanese." That is to say, the whites who formerly 
lived there have migrated. 

In the trades also, Japanese competition has been keenly 
felt. In carpentering, laundering, construction contracts, 
they are undercutting their white competitors below the 
limit of doing business on an American basis. Cheap 
restaurants are also gradually passing into their hands. 



THE '* YELLOW PERIL" 169 

It is needless to say that the native American in 
California took cognizance of the situation long ago. 
Contrary to general belief, especially in the Eastern 
United States, the anti-Japanese movement did not 
originate in union labor circles, though it naturally 
quickly enlisted a follov^ing among the working and 
tradespeople. Indeed the movement has been not a 
little embarrassed and deprived of the consideration it 
should have received in other quarters, by the unre- 
strained activities of the "Asiatic Exclusion League" 
and some of its spokesmen. 

The San Francisco school troubles of 1907, already 
described, were quieted, and dropped from the limelight 
of public attention, but the feeling that had precipi- 
tated the affair was by no means dead. Two years 
afterward, in 1909, the California legislature considered 
various bills designed to segregate Japanese in the 
schools, prevent Japanese ownership of land, and in 
other ways restrict their activities within the state. 
President Roosevelt again intervened and induced the 
California officials to drop the matter. This was wise, 
as the bills were not carefully drawn and their passage 
would inevitably have involved the national government 
in difficulties. 

In 19 1 3 the California legislature again occupied 
itself with anti-Japanese legislation. Bills were pro- 



170 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

posed in both chambers. In one of these bills the words 
" ineligible to citizenship " were used. Fearing that 
the enactment of this legislation might upset delicate 
international relations, President Wilson took the 
unusual course of personally interesting himself to 
the extent not only of telegraphing to the governor of 
the state his own views and wishes, but also of sending 
Mr. Bryan, the Secretary of State, to the coast to con- 
fer with the lawmakers. Mr. Bryan was cordially 
received and accorded a respectful hearing. He re- 
quested the Calif ornians to defer action until President 
Wilson and the State Department should have had an 
opportunity, either alone or in conjunction with a com- 
mittee of the California legislature, to negotiate with 
Japan, or else to enact a law similar to that of Illinois 
which allows aliens to hold land for but six years. 

The legislature did not act upon any of those sugges- 
tions, but, instead, turned its attention to a new bill, 
drafted by the state attorney-general, U. S. Webb. 
The Webb bill passed both houses, but Governor John- 
son had promised the President to refrain from signing 
it until a chance had offered for the national government 
to act in the matter. President Wilson did request that 
the bill be not signed until the matter could be taken up 
diplomatically with Japan. But the governor refused 
to see any " absolutely controlling necessity " for with- 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" I7i 

holding his signature and it became a law, August lo, 
1913. 

The Webb Act provides first that " All aliens eligible 
to citizenship under the laws of the United States may 
acquire, possess, enjoy, transfer, and inherit real prop- 
perty, or any interest therein, in this State in the same 
manner and to the same extent as citizens of the United 
States, except as otherwise provided by the laws of this 
State." In the second section it was enacted that " All 
aliens other than those mentioned in section I may ac- 
quire, possess, enjoy, and transfer, real property or any 
interest therein, in the manner and to the extent and for 
the purpose prescribed by any treaty now existing be- 
tween the government of the United States and the na- 
tion and country of which said alien is a citizen, or sub- 
ject, and not otherwise." Such aliens are permitted to 
lease agricultural lands for three-year periods. 

In his detailed reply to the President's request that 
he withhold his signature from the bill. Governor John- 
son said that other states had enacted similar laws, that 
the naturalization laws of the United States determine 
who may and who may not be eligible for citizenship ; 
that the phrase "persons who cannot become eligible 
under the existing laws to become citizens of the United 
States " occurs in the immigration law passed by both 
houses of the Sixty-second Congress ; and that Calif or- 



172 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

nia was merely following the statutes of the United 
States in any discrimination regarding citizenship. 
The governor further stated that the question was not 
"whether any oifense had been taken [by Japan], but 
whether justly it should be taken." 

The claim has been made, and perhaps with some 
show of justice, that party politics played more of a 
part in the enacting of this legislation than it should 
have done and that a " Progressive " governor was not 
averse to putting a Democratic President " in a hole." 
If this were true, it would betray an almost incompre- 
hensible short-sightedness on the part of California's 
officials. For it has been well said that the " California 
Japanese question is 2 per cent California and 98 per 
cent national." 

The Japanese government took official cognizance 
of the situation even before the Webb law was passed. 
Ambassador Chinda having called upon President 
Wilson the second day of his administration, and 
expressed the belief that should any of the bills pend- 
ing in the California legislature become laws " the ef- 
fect would be very serious." Later, Viscount Chinda 
made other representations, and it seems to have been 
a result of the pressure thus exerted that the adminis- 
tration took the unusual steps to influence state legis- 
lation that have been described. When the Webb bill 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" i73 

had become law, the Japanese government lodged a 
formal protest with the State Department (May lO, 
1913), which pointed out that in the Japanese view the 
law was not only unfair and discriminatory, but vio- 
lated the spirit of the American- Japanese treaty. The 
American reply pointed out that the difficulty was an 
economic not a political one, and that if the Japanese felt 
their treaty rights to have been abridged, they might 
have recourse to the Federal Courts. This did not sat- 
isfy the Japanese government and a second protest was 
lodged on June 4. This document contained the sig- 
nificant statement that as Japan and America were 
"geographically destined to be permanent neighbors," 
it behooved both sides to adopt an attitude of concilia- 
tion and cooperation and to avoid anything that might 
hurt the feelings of the other. 

On July 16 the Secretary of State tendered his reply 
to this protest. In this document Mr. Bryan reiter- 
ated his statement that the difficulty is an economic one, 
not a racial one, and pointed out the similarity of the 
situation with the working of Imperial Ordinance 352,* 
designed to operate against the Chinese in Japan. The 
Japanese standpoint was that "the separate states of 
the United States are, internationally speaking, wholly 
unknown and entirely without responsibility," the cor- 
1 See page 188. 



174 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

ollary of which is that the Federal government is re- 
sponsible. Mr. Bryan, however, in his note, recurred 
to and quoted an indiscreet expression of opinion which 
Baron Uchida had made to Mr. Knox in a communica- 
tion of an earlier date. In it Baron Uchida had said : 
" In return for the rights of land ownership which are 
granted Japanese by the laws of the United States (of 
which, I may observe, there are now about thirty) the 
Imperial Government will, by liberal interpretation of 
the law, be prepared to grant land ownership to Ameri- 
can citisens from all the States, reserving for the future, 
however, the right of maintaining the condition of 
reciprocity with respect to the separate States." [The 
italics are Mr. Bryan's.] 

As there seemed no possibility of getting anywhere 
along this line, the Japanese government then under- 
took to arrange a new treaty, but this proposal was 
withdrawn after a time and has not been made public. 
At last account, therefore, the discussion had again 
swung round to what diplomats love to refer to as the 
status quo. 

General Considerations 

Along with the negro question there is no doubt that 
the problem of Oriental immigration into America is one 
of the most difficult and one of the most important that 
we have ever been called upon to face. Face it we must, 



THE "yellow peril" I7S 

however, and solve it with whatever of political wisdom 
we may be able to develop. It is difficult to judge the 
facts wholly impersonally. The Californian is apt to 
consider the subject too objectively, the Easterner too 
academically. It is wholly unreasonable for one to 
ignore the standpoint of the other. We may set aside 
the opinion of the advocate of " cheap labor to properly 
develop the resources of the State," regardless of the 
future, as we may also that of the Harvard professor 
who finds that racial antipathies are " the childish phe- 
nomena in our lives, not noble phenomena." We are 
dealing with the vital problem of hundreds of thou- 
sands of American citizens who are as incapable of 
prostituting their children's inheritance for the profit 
of the moment as they are of ordering their lives by 
the subtle tenets of psychological analysis. 

We hear a good deal about opposition to Asiatic im- 
migration being " un-American " on the ground that our 
whole population is an immigrant one. But this ignores 
the important fact that when the strong tide of European 
immigration began to set toward the New World, it 
came first from those parts of Europe that had drawn 
the greater part of our original settlement population and 
hence were most easily assimilated. As these sources 
became exhausted and a larger proportion and increas- 
ing numbers began to come from Southern Europe and 



176 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Russia, the difficulty of assimilation became more 
marked and the question of regulating the flow came to 
the fore. But all the people of Europe are of one great 
race even if of various stocks (unless we wish to except 
the Jews), and all have the same social heritage, the 
same common historic background of tradition and re- 
ligion. Compared with the Asiatic in assimilability it 
is as if Slav and Saxon, Sicilian and Swede, were of one 
family. If the assimilation of the " wop " is difficult, 
that of the " Jap " is impossible. It is vain to prove, as 
Professor Wigmore does, that the Japanese are not 
Mongolians. Granted. This gains nothing except per- 
haps the technical evasion of a law. 

It is equally beside the point to speak of men like 
Kitasato, Takamine, Kawakami, Okakura, Nitobe, 
Asakawa, and scores of other Japanese who bave gath- 
ered laurels in Occidental fields, as it is on the other 
hand to mention instances of individuals without any 
conception of the sacredness of contractual obligations. 
No one who knows anything about the Japanese at all 
will deny them their full meed of credit and praise for 
the possession of as many excellences as may be found 
in any people of Europe. Particularly is this true of 
the " common people." Nowhere else in the world are 
the peasantry possessed of those graces of manner and 
genuine courtesy that we continually meet in interior 



THE ''yellow peril" 177 

Japan. Many a time have I traveled in third-class 
cars and put up at third-class inns that I might enjoy 
the genial companionship of the unpretentious country 
folk. Possibly this was because I was deferred to, 
which always makes for complacency! But because 
I may be proud to know a man like Kitasato or count 
a Mitsukuri as a friend, does not mean that I should 
care to have Hyakushoya Gombei for my next-door 
neighbor in California, occupied in gaining a living. 
One of the happiest years of my life I spent in a little 
inland village in Japan of less than two thousand inhab- 
itants as the " paying guest " in a Japanese family ; yet 
I hate to think what my experiences might have been 
if I had tried to operate a retail shop in that same town. 
For it makes all the difference in the world whether 
aliens meet one another as guest and host or as com- 
petitors. 

Now the Japanese scattered throughout colleges in 
the East or as occasional curio-shop keepers are essen- 
tially guests, and the Easterner's relations with them 
are those of hosts; moreover, they are most often mem- 
bers of the gentry. But in the West the Japanese 
(almost always of the heimin class) are competitors, 
and, pulling together by a sort of racial surface tension, 
they attain a solidarity in competition that is not 
achieved by the whites, even in California. And, in 



178 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

the main, it is a successful competition, by fair means or 
foul. 

Many writers, arguing from the acknowledged excel- 
lences of the Japanese race and some of the best-known 
deficiencies of our own, believe that the admixture of a 
Japanese element would be a good thing for our popu- 
lation; that the Japanese would become good Americans. 
This is bound to be largely a matter of opinion. I 
believe, personally, that it is an economical and a bio- 
logical impossibility for the two races to assimilate, ex- 
cept perhaps in an age-long interval of time that is now 
no longer available. And the presence of an undigested 
and indigestible alien mass in California cannot be 
other than a breeder of future trouble. 

In this matter Americans will do well to consider the 
" French problem " in portions of Canada, especially in 
Ontario and Quebec. To the theorist, there should 
not be any very great difficulty experienced by the Eng- 
lish in assimilating a people so intimately connected 
with them through centuries of history as the French. 
A good deal of the difficulty is at bottom religious, of 
course, and we should not expect a great amount of 
intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants, even 
in two centuries of association. But there seems to be 
something more fundamental than this. During all 
these years, the French of Canada have remained 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 179 

French. The Germans in the United States, on the 
other hand, melt into the American mixture, as a rule, 
in a few generations. There is a racial solidarity about 
the French, when collected in groups, that resists and 
reacts against the attrition of another race, even if not 
a very alien one. 

In 1912, as a result of a series of complaints, the Pro- 
vincial government appointed a commission to inspect 
the schools of Ontario. They found the Roman Cath- 
olic catechism taught in thirty of the public schools, 
contrary to the rules. French was more extensively 
used than English and the teachers in many schools 
spoke English very imperfectly. 

In the summer of that same year a Congress of the 
French language was held — the avowed purpose of 
which was to protect " the French life and the unity of 
the French race," which " depend upon the preservation 
of their language." Resolutions were adopted stating, 
among other things, that the French in Quebec and 
Ontario should be encouraged to migrate to other 
provinces and found colonies; that Frenchmen should 
insist upon a better status for the French language in 
the schools there ; and that in any " bilingual school " 
the language of instruction should be that of the majority 
and that pupils should be permitted to choose the lan- 
guage for the written examinations. It will be seen that 



i8o JAPANESE EXPANSION 

citizenship has nothing to do with this situation, in fact 
increases the difficulty. 

The racial solidarity of the French is as nothing com- 
pared with that of the Japanese, — one of the most 
inbred peoples of the earth. Let us imagine the Japa- 
nese admitted to citizenship and allowed free entrance 
to California. Will they scatter generally among the 
whites or will they form groups of their own kind? 
No one with the slightest experience of the situation 
can be doubtful of the answer to this question. The 
whites themselves hasten the result by moving away 
when the Japanese become numerous. Will they, with 
their love of home and country, their devotion to their 
national history and its ideals, be more likely to become 
more English-speaking or less, as the numbers of their 
own kind increase in a given locality ? German officials 
are reported to deplore the loss to the fatherland of 
Germans who emigrate to America. There is little 
question that this race is the most easily assimilated 
here of any non-English that enter our country. Yet 
the writer has spent days in towns of Missouri and 
southern Illinois, settled by Germans long ago, and has 
never heard an English word spoken during his stay. 

Suppose that in Solano County in California, the 
Japanese, each an American citizen with a vote, decide 
to adopt the attitude of the French Canadian with regard 



THE "yellow peril" i8i 

to his native tongue. When his vote is one of a majority 
in that county, and he passes the same regulation that 
instruction shall be in the language of the majority of 
the citizens, could anything more effective be devised 
for the peaceful conquest of the country? 

Those who pooh-pooh the Japanese danger fail to 
distinguish the difference between individual Japanese 
and Japanese in the mass. The dangerous conse- 
quences arising from the presence of the latter are 
due in the main to the good qualities of the race 
rather than otherwise, — qualities which abstractly we 
should praise.^ 

The intermingling of Orientals and Occidentals en 
masse is something like the admixture of oil and water. 
They simply do not form a stable mixture if suddenly 
poured into one another. But if a trace of alkali be 
added to the water, the result is an emulsification of the 
oil so that an intimate and permanent suspension is 
produced. And the housewife knows that when she 
makes mayonnaise dressing, which is nothing but a thick 

^How persistent racial prejudices are, even if without the slight- 
est foundation in fact, will be attested by any one who has lived 
any length of time in the country districts of Japan, especially in 
the west. It is a deeply rooted belief there, that curly hair always 
goes with a treacherous heart (perhaps a relic of an ancient 
Nigrito experience). And many a young Japanese girl has had 
her life fairly ruined on account of a slight waviness of hair. 



i82 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

emulsion of olive oil, she must add the oil, drop by drop. 
To do otherwise would curdle the whole mixture. 

I have not the slightest doubt that if Japanese were to 
be very slowly added to our body politic and, instead of 
aggregating in colonies, were to diffuse throughout our 
population, it would result in a sort of racial emulsifica- 
tion that would be of permanent advantage to both sides. 
This would take a long period of time to accomplish, 
however, and nothing would interfere with the process 
so much as hasty and ill-considered exclusive legislation. 

After all, it is a practical problem. For what dif- 
ference does it make whether or not the standpoint of 
the white population of British Columbia, California, 
and Australia is logically sound, so long as they think 
alike on the subject ? And with a few conspicuous ex- 
ceptions, they do think alike. If the eight or ten million 
whites in these countries were possessed of heterodox 
notions regarding transubstantiation, let us say, to the 
extent that they were prepared to fight for their opinions, 
no rational atheist could afford to ignore the situation. 

The Other Side of the Shield 
It is of interest to discover that the Japanese, on their 
part, have long had very clearly defined ideas on this 
subject and understand the situation and its implica- 
tions better than we do. 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 183 

In 1892 when Japan was taking the final steps in the 
way of concluding the current treaties with foreign 
powers, this matter of the ahen danger perhaps to be 
encountered with the abolition of extraterritoriality 
greatly agitated her statesmen. Mr. (now Viscount) 
Kaneko took occasion to write Herbert Spencer, who 
was a sort of oracle on such things, asking his advice. 
Spencer answered at length.^ Among other things he 
said: " The Japanese policy should, I think, be that of 
keeping Americans and Europeans as much as possible 
at arm's length. In the presence of the more powerful 
races, your position is one of chronic danger and you 
should take every precaution to give as little foothold 
as possible to foreigners. It seems to me that the only 
forms of intercourse which you may with advantage 
permit are those which are indispensable for the ex- 
change of commodities and exchange of ideas. No 
further privileges should be allowed to people of other 
races, and especially to people of the more powerful 
races, than is absolutely needful for the achievement of 
these ends. Apparently you are proposing, by revision 
of the treaty powers with Europe and America, to open 
the whole Empire to foreigners and foreign capital. I 
regard this as a fatal policy. . . . 

" In pursuance of the advice thus generally indicated, 
1 " Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer." II, 14. 



1 84 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

I should say, in answer to your first question, that there 
should be, not only a prohibition to foreign persons to 
hold property in land, but also a refusal to give them 
leases and a permission only to reside as annual tenants." 
" To your remaining question respecting the intermar- 
riage of foreigners and Japanese, my reply is that, as 
rationally answered, there is no difficulty at all. . . . 
It is at root a question of biology. ... If you 
mix the constitutions of two widely divergent varieties 
which have severally become adopted to widely diver- 
gent modes of life, you get a constitution which is 
adapted to the mode of life of neither — a constitution 
which will not work properly, because it is not fitted for 
any set of conditions whatever. By all means, there- 
fore, peremptorily interdict marriages of Japanese with 
foreigners." 

" I have for the reasons indicated entirely approved 
of the regulations which have been established in Amer- 
ica for restraining the Chinese immigration, and had I 
the power, would restrict them to the smallest possible 
amount, my reasons for this decision being that one of 
two things must happen. If the Chinese are allowed to 
settle extensively in America, they must either, if they 
remain unmixed, form a subject class in the position, 
if not of slaves, yet of a class approaching slaves; or 
if they mix, they must form a bad hybrid. In either 



THE " YELLOW PERIL " 185 \ 

case, supposing the immigration to be large, immense i 
social mischief must arise and eventually social disor- 
ganization. The same thing will happen if there should 
be any considerable mixture of the European or Ameri- 
can races with the Japanese." 

" You see, therefore, that my advice is strongly con- 
servative in all directions and I end by saying as I began 
— keep other races at arm's length as much as possible." \ 

Viscount Kaneko has never revealed to what extent 
Spencer's advice was followed. But Spencer was the 
great vogue in Japan in the '90' s and it must have had 
weight. The anxiety concerning mixed marriages in 
Japan seems to have been quite unfounded. 

As for land tenure and foreign capital, the Japanese 
have been in a dilemma that was not understood by 
Mr. Spencer. Above all things, Japan requires capital 
to develop her industries, and in the absence of a large 
home supply, it must needs be foreign capital. Capi- 
tal is anything but altruistic and becomes very timid 
when it is impossible to invest it in physical form. 
So fearful have the Japanese been, however, that this, 
their most crying need, has been smothered in their 
anxiety not to permit a foot of Japanese territory to 
pass into foreign hands. 

In the earlier days, it was not unusual for foreigners 
to hold buildings and grounds in the names of Japanese 



\ 



1 86 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

who were expected to function as dummies or in some 
cases as trustees. In not a few cases ^ the Japanese 
thus chosen failed to appreciate the obligations of trus- 
teeship and converted the fiction of their property rights 
into reality. 

Nowadays foreigners may hold land under the legal 
fiction of " juridical persons." A juridical person may 
be a partnership or a joint-stock company, but not an 
individual. In addition foreigners enjoy the right to 
lease land (" superficies "j) frequently for long periods, 
but these substitutes for ownership have not attracted 
capital. 

In 191 o the Japanese diet passed a new law relating 
to foreign right of ownership in land.^ Apparently the 
new law removes the restrictions. According to it 
foreigners may own land if the reciprocal privilege is 
granted to Japanese in his own country. He must ob- 
tain permission of the Home Office so to do, however, 
and his country must have been previously designated 
by Imperial Ordinance, The law does not apply 
to (i) Hokkaidd, (2) Formosa, (3) Saghalien, and 
(4)] " Districts necessary for national defense." But 
foreigners find a "joker" in Article III of the law, 
which states that " In case a foreigner or a foreign jur- 

^The Doshisha school troubles, for instance. 

2 The " Gwaikoku-jin no tochi shoyu-ken ni Kwdn-suru ken." 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 187 

idical person owning land ceases to be capable of enjoy- 
ing the right of ownership in land, the ownership of such 
land shall revert to the National Treasury unless he dis- 
poses of it within a period of one year." In case the 
foreigner withdraws his business or moves away, the 
above period shall be extended to five years. To those 
who appreciate what "team work" the Japanese are 
capable of, the requirement to sell within a year appears 
to amount to confiscation. And it seems to be left en- 
tirely to the Japanese authorities to determine just what 
conditions may be under which the foreigner " ceases to 
be capable of enjoying the right of ownership in land." 
It may well be that such a privilege would depend upon 
the attitude of the foreigner's own country anent Japan. 
In fact the whole paragraph appears to be a weapon of 
retaliation against such nations as may in the future 
pass laws distasteful to Japanese emigrants. Although 
promulgated April 13, 1910, the law has not yet been 
put into force by Imperial Ordinance. 

In connection with the indignant protests of the Jap- 
anese government regarding the Calif ornian Exclusion 
Law and the protracted diplomatic interchanges between 
Washington and Tokyo that were at the last hearing 
still " unsatisfactory " to the latter, it is of a great deal 
of interest to look into Japan's own attitude toward the 
same problem. 



1 88 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

We have seen the Japanese attitude toward foreign 
land holding, in spite of the great need for foreign 
capital which the present laws frighten away. We 
might think that a country not so large as California 
with a population half that of the whole United States 
need not fear foreign immigration, particularly of la- 
borers. The idea is of course absurd — from the Occi- 
dental standpoint. But Japan is very close to China. 
If the pressure of population in Japan is great, in Shan- 
tung it is greater, and between the two a sort of inter- 
national plasmolysis may very well occur if no restric- 
tions be erected. If the Japanese can underlive and 
undersell the American in his own land, so can the 
Chinese underlive and defeat the Japanese if he has 
half a chance. Fifteen years ago Chinese peddlers be- 
gan to be numerous in Japan, especially in the south- 
ern and central parts. They traveled all over the coun- 
try and did a thriving business. Moreover, after the 
Russian war, Chinese coolies began to come into^ Japan, 
attracted by the high wages there to be had. Thus the 
Japanese found themselves confronted by very much 
the same problem that has vexed California, British 
Columbia, and Australia, — native labor displaced by 
" cheap foreign labor.'* 

In 1899 an Imperial Ordinance, No. 352, was promul- 
gated regarding the residence of foreigners outside the 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 189 

"treaty ports," in accordance with the new treaty re- 
lations with Europe and America. At this time, very 
likely with a Chinese invasion in mind, of which the 
peddlers were the advance guard, such residence was 
denied to laborers except by permission of the Home 
Office. This permission can be revoked by any provin- 
cial governor at his own discretion. " Laborers " were, 
at the same time, defined to be those engaged in " agri- 
cultural, fishing, mining, civil-engineering work, archi- 
tectural, manufacturing, transporting, carting, steve- 
doring, and other miscellaneous work." Exception 
was made for cooks and waiters. 

It is obvious that Occidentals were not in the mind of 
the Home Minister when he drafted this regulation, but 
as it is a general law, it is equally obvious that it is ap- 
plicable to Americans, particularly when no one nation 
is specified. And there is little doubt that the Ordi- 
nance would be promptly invoked should American 
competition begin in any of the lines cited above. Of 
course the American tourist or student is welcomed 
(officially, as a matter of fact) as the Japanese traveler 
is in this country, and with much greater reason, as the 
gold the globe-trotter leaves in Japan goes a long way, 
as we have seen, toward offsetting the annual unfavor- 
able balance of trade. 

In 1907 several hundred Chinese were deported from 



I90 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Nagasaki by the governor of the province. When the 
Chinese Minister protested, the Home Office referred 
him to the law just quoted by virtue of which the pre- 
fectural governor is empowered to use his own discre- 
tion and stated that it could not interfere. This was 
" states rights "of the American kind. It is significant 
that the deported Chinese were of two groups, one of the 
groups being composed of coolies and the other of 
skilled artisans. 

Solution of the Problem in America 

He would be a wise man, not to say a presumptuous 
one, who should attempt to outline a definite and con- 
clusive solution to the problem indicated in the preced- 
ing pages. Not only must such a solution rest upon an 
intelligent and disinterested appreciation of numerous 
factors, apparently unrelated, but many of these factors 
are contingent upon future events, the outcome of which 
can be but vaguely predicted. Nevertheless certain fun- 
damental postulates cannot be ignored in any solution. 

First, it is not a Calif ornian, nor a Canadian, nor an 
Australian problem, but a world problem. The white 
inhabitants of these countries are but the advance guard 
of the spreading army of migration that has circled the 
globe from East to West until it has come face to face 
with the Farther East. The empty places of the earth 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 191 

are filling up. Some modus vivendi must be found 
along the zone in which East meets West. The conflict 
may be a potential one, but it is none the less real. 
Whether it be allowed to drift into a military or an eco- 
nomic conflict will depend in large measure upon the de- 
gree to which the peoples involved avoid false steps. 
To some it seems better to avoid a conflict and to leave 
the Pacific Ocean like a boundary fence between two in- 
compatible neighbors. These are the exclusionists of 
one sort or another. Naturally the instinct of self-pres- 
ervation places the dwellers on the Pacific shores in this 
class. Others with no personal interests at stake are 
willing to " let Nature take her course," confident that 
in such a struggle for racial existence Occidental civil- 
ization will be dominant over Oriental. This academic 
view, which holds that an armed conflict with the Orient 
is inevitable and hence to be prepared for (Hobson, 
Homer Lea), or that it is desirable and hence to be has- 
tened (Kaiser Wilhelm), is obviously directly opposed 
to that of the first standpoint just mentioned. Yet an 
exclusion program that is unintelligently conceived or 
injudiciously administered may of itself lead to conflict. 

For this reason it ought to be understood that the con- 
trol of Japanese immigration is not a state affair nor 
even a national affair, but an international one. 

The Japanese contend, and with justice, that they do 



192 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

not wish to push in where they are not wanted and that 
they are not pressing for the right to emigrate en masse 
to America, where their presence is an increasing cause 
of friction. But they do feel themselves the equal of 
any other nation and they resent being treated as a class 
apart. They of course concede the right of any nation 
to determine its own conditions of immigration and 
naturalization, but they insist that all aliens shall be 
treated alike. The necessity for saving Japan's face in 
this matter is hardly appreciated enough in the Occi- 
dent. It is not easy to believe that in the Far East the 
shadow is sometimes more highly valued than the sub- 
stance. But any kind of an exclusion act that fails to 
take this important feature into account is certain to be 
a source of irritation and international friction. 

The only plan that appears to the writer even partially 
to meet the difficulty (in the way of immigration, not 
in the side issues of owning land or of doing business) is 
the plan proposed by Dr. Sidney L. Gulick,^ as well- 
equipped a student of American- Japanese questions as 
there is in either land. This plan bases the number of 
immigrants that may be admitted to this country in 
any one year upon our capacity to assimilate them. 

^The interested reader will find the plan discussed in detail in 
"The American Japanese Problem," by Sidney L. Gulick. New 
York, 1914. 



THE "YELLOW PERIL" 193 

Since this task must fall chiefly upon those aliens natu- 
ralized or ready to be who are already here and know 
both languages, Mr. Gulick finds ready at hand a cri- 
terion by which to determine the number that may be 
safely taken in, and one that can give offense to no one, 
since it is based upon purely mechanical considerations. 
From North Europe, whence our most valued immigra- 
tion has come in the past, we have such a large number 
of naturalized citizens that the present immigration 
falls far short of the proportion that might be allotted to 
such a population under the plan. From Southern 
Europe and Russia the allowable number would be much 
smaller, which would be highly desirable. From the 
Far East it would be negligible. Yet all would be 
treated on the same basis. Various objections have 
been offered to this scheme and many details would have 
to be worked out. Yet it is becoming increasingly evi- 
dent that the whole problem of immigration into Amer- 
ica from the East as well as from the West is in need of 
a readjustment based upon a broader and more far- 
sighted understanding of our future necessities than our 
present laws provide, and Dr. Gulick's plan certainly 
marks a long step in advance. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE CHANCES OF WAR 

In the beginning we have pointed out that a Japanese- 
American war may be inevitable, probable, or merely 
possible, according to the temperament of the prophet. 
Granting that anything of the sort is possible, the 
probability of such an occurrence or its inevitability^ 
rest upon somewhat different premises. 

Moreover, it makes a difference which side is to be 
considered the aggressor. Let us begin by assuming 
that it is the United States. What grounds may be 
offered for declaring war against Japan? As Japan 
is many thousands of miles away, opportunities for 
collision are not very numerous. The writer can 
think of but three. First, a state of tension may arise 
that would lead to acts of hostility against Americans 
in the Orient, which we could not ignore; second, we 
may consider the academic proposition of maintaining 
the "Open Door" in China; and third, Japan may 
assume such an aggressive attitude toward helpless 
China that we should feel called upon to come to the 
defense of the latter. 

194 



THE CHANCES OF WAR I95 

The last we may dismiss without discussion. Wars 
are not made in America at the whim of rulers, and 
the people of this country are disinclined to interfere, 
least of all by arms, with the affairs of another and 
alien people. The second consideration is equally 
impossible. American interests in Mexico today are 
vastly more valuable than they are in China and the 
temptation to interfere infinitely greater, yet as a 
whole the American people are steadfast in their de- 
termination to keep out of Mexico if it is humanly 
possible to do so. The idea of fighting any country 
for the purpose of increasing the profits of trade is 
little likely to attract a following in America. We 
want an open market for our goods in China, but 
to pay for it with a costly war would be the worst sort 
of bad business. It is needless to say that sympathy 
for China would be very keen in America, particularly 
if Japanese ascendancy there meant loss of American 
trade, and that is something which Japan would do 
well to keep in mind as a possible offset to any assumed 
advantages of unnecessarily harsh measures on the 
continent. 

As Japan and the United States rub elbows more and 
more, many opportunities may arise and probably will 
arise, from time to time, to mar the friendly tone of 
American-Japanese relations. Yet the chance of any 



196 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

overt hostile act being committed against Americans in 
Japan is extremely remote. Almost universally, Amer- 
ican residents in Japan are well liked and American 
tourists are welcomed, if for no other reason than the 
money they spend, and in any event it is very unlikely 
that Japan would fail to make full reparation for any 
real injury due to the acts of irresponsible Japanese 
citizens. The only reason that she might fail to do so 
would be that she would desire to take intentional ad- 
vantage of such an occasion to declare her hostility. 
And this brings us to the other aspect of the question : 
Japan may be the aggressor. As a matter of fact, this 
is the only viewpoint adopted by those who preach the 
Japanese danger. 

Again let us try to analyze the possible causes for a 
war which might be declared by Japan against the 
United States. The responsibility for such a conflict 
may rest upon our own unthinking heads. For in- 
stance, conceding that we are foolish enough to persist 
in a policy of irritation such as we have toward the 
Chinese, with respect to the administration of the im- 
migration laws, or that we treat Japanese immigrants in 
California with barbaric harshness, mob them or lynch 
them, why then it is quite likely that we may goad 
Japan or force her into a false position, in which, under 
the current code of national honor, she may feel that 



THE CHAKCES OF WAR ^97 

she has to fight even if it should be her downfall. But 
this must also assume that America will, without real 
reason, go back on her long record of friendship for 
Japan, and likewise that, in the wrong, we shall as a 
nation refuse to make such amends as one gentleman 
may make to another. We are a mercurial people, 
but I cannot believe that we are in any danger of 
acting so contrary to our honorable past history. The 
nation that followed out her pledge and gave Cuba 
back her independence, or that stuck to the letter of 
her bargain in regard to the Panama canal tolls, is 
not likely to do wrong by another nation and refuse 
just reparation. What other motive then will exist for 
a declaration of war by Japan upon America? There 
is left the motive of national aggrandizement. And 
this is the basic motive assumed by practically all the 
war writers. 

The author possesses no secrets of the Japanese 
government. He would not presume to say that 
Japan has no idea of going to war with America for 
the profit to be made out of it. Nations are no wiser 
than their leaders, and nations have been foolish in 
the past. But the profitableness of past wars for Japan 
has been noted on a previous page.* And Japan's 
foreign policy has long been pursued with an astuteness 
1 See page 44. 



198 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

and a far-sightedness that gives no hint of such stu- 
pendous folly as would be involved in the calculated 
bringing on of war against a power like America. 

Let us keep the conditions clearly in mind. Grant 
that war will not be forced upon Japan by ourselves. 
Grant that if Japan becomes so incensed, or so humili- 
ated, that her national honor will demand war, that 
the responsibility will be upon our own shoulders, not 
hers; then the only other motive left to consider will 
be that of cold, calculated design, the hope on the one 
hand of ruling the entire domain of the Pacific by 
eliminating the last great rival and on the other hand 
of appropriating, a la Rob Roy, the riches which Amer- 
ica has so industriously accumulated and neglec^d to 
guard. 

The money cost of modern warfare is appalling. To 
conduct an aggressive campaign a nation must have 
either an enormous gold reserve or else unlimited credit. 
Japan has neither. It is computed that the cost of 
maintaining a soldier in the field is at the least $2.50 
a day. Five hundred thousand is the very lowest 
number that could hope to effectively occupy any por- 
tion of the west coast of America. This would mean 
$1,125,000 a day, to which must be added the enormous 
cost of transport 5000 miles from the home base. The 
interest on foreign debt which cripples Japan so badly at 



THE CHANCES OF WAR I99 

present is but $35,000,000 annually, enough to last, let 
us say, three weeks. 

It has often been said that the lack of money has 
never yet prevented a war nor deterred a nation from 
declaring war. This is no doubt true, but it does not 
follow that the lack of money is of equally little con- 
sequence in winning a war. And according to our orig- 
inal premises, if an anti-American campaign should be 
inaugurated by Japan for her own gain, it could only 
be with the outcome clearly foreseen. Either (i) she 
should have made secret agreements with other powers 
so that enormous loans to finance such a war would be 
obtainable, or (2) she would depend upon striking 
quickly and paralyzing the American defense so that 
our prostrate country would be compelled to sue for 
peace and to pay an enormous indemnity, or (3) she 
might seize the coveted Hawaii and the Philippines 
with their boundless resources and make them her 
own, or (4) having done so, and not wishing to keep 
them, she might turn them over to some European 
power for a large cash sum and thereby realize the 
equivalent of an indemnity without even attacking con- 
tinental America. All these possibilities have been dis- 
cussed in one form or another by the American press 
and war experts. Let us examine them a little more 
closely. 



20O JAPANESE EXPANSION 

First, let us consider the financing of such a war by 
a European (and presumably hostile) power. Assum- 
ing that any European power should have reason for 
such a conspicuous display of hostility, or particularly 
any advantage to be gained by it, its feasibility would 
depend primarily upon the conviction on the part of 
such European power that Japan would surely be the 
victor in the contest. To speak not too bumptiously, 
that would be a "long chance" to put much money 
upon. But let us be more specific. What powers could 
finance such an enormously expensive campaign? 
Would it be Russia ? Russia has no money to lend, for 
one thing, and some who are weatherwise have even 
claimed that (at least until August, 19 14) she was sav- 
ing her pennies to retrieve her lost prestige of 1904. 
Would it be Germany ? With the memory of Tsingtao 
in mind, that sounds like irony. Would it be England ? 
The writer cannot conceive of any situation in which it 
would be possible, for no other nation in the world 
would lose quite so much by the humbling of the United 
States and its conquest by an Oriental power as Eng- 
land. The defeat of the United States at the hands 
of an Oriental power would mean the break-up of the 
British Empire. There is left France. But granting 
that France would care to oppose England as regards 
the Far East, her eggs are in the same basket with 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 2oi 

Germany's. But all this is rather academic, men of 
straw whose knocking down merely rounds out the 
argument. 

The second consideration mentioned above rests on 
the assumption that Japan could make a sudden raid, 
seize the coast, perhaps bum Los Angeles, San Fran- 
cisco, Portland, and Seattle, or hold them for ransom, 
and that the United States, helpless because unpre- 
pared, would be forced to pay a heavy indemnity in 
order to make the Japanese leave. Such a campaign, it 
is thought, would be comparatively inexpensive for Ja- 
pan, and, if successful, might be very profitable. That 
the United States is wholly unprepared to resist invasion 
in force is of course well known. (We have omitted 
any consideration of the American fleet, which presum- 
ably might justify its existence.) Yet, granting every- 
thing, allowing that the Japanese expeditionary forces 
have landed at any of the many unprotected localities 
pointed out by the experts, what then? They would 
seize the towns, of course, but the coast states are mainly 
agricultural. Wealth is not concentrated as it is in in- 
dustrial communities, and moreover the greater part of 
the country is rough and mountainous. 

Any one who believes that the inhabitants of these 
Western states, whose fathers and grandfathers were 
the pioneers that subdued the wilderness a half century 



202 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

ago, will meekly bow the head to the invader or that 
the nation as a whole would do so, has a singular con- 
ception of the spirit of the American people. These 
men and women are not Flemish peasants. Grant that 
our militia would be useless and the Japanese advance 
almost undisputed, yet in the mountains and in the 
districts away from the cities, there doubtless would 
ensue a protracted guerilla warfare that could last indefi- 
nitely, and the longer it lasted the worse off Japan 
would be. Past experience teaches that even savages 
can keep up an almost endless warfare of this sort and 
one that is very expensive for the invading force. Japan 
knows something about this from her twenty years' ex- 
perience in trying to subdue the natives of Formosa. At 
any rate, the belief that because we have no large army 
to oppose a Japanese invasion, such an invasion would 
spell a quick victory and a prompt conclusion of hos- 
tilities with the levying of a crushing indemnity, is 
quite without justification. Moreover, the wealth of 
the four large cities named, even if all seized, would 
not be a drop in the bucket compared with the expen- 
ditures required to take it. The millionaires of Pasa- 
dena would not linger long to be captured. And the 
Japanese could not realize much more except by har- 
vesting the crops on the ranches, which is their ap- 
pointed task in times of peace. In short, the hope of a 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 203 

sudden realization of profit would be doomed to failure, 
and Japan would be in for a long and ruinously ex- 
pensive campaign.^ 

The point is, not that Japan could not invade and con- 
quer the coast states, but that, having done so, she could 
not stand the financial and economic strain of holding 
them for a long time under a necessarily military occu- 
pation. Hence if she realizes this, there will be no mo- 
tive for her to attempt the enterprise. 

The third consideration is one that has received more 
attention than any of the others. It is obvious that 
we could not protect the entire Philippine archipelago 
against invasion without the concentration of a very 
strong army there. Corregidor, high above the sea, 
might hold out for a long time, but in the end an at- 
tacking force would probably prevail. This, of course, 
on the assumption that it had the freedom of the sea, on 
account of the destruction of the American fleet. It 
has been pointed out, moreover, that Japan's policy, as 
exemplified in the Russian war, is to strike first and 
issue the declaration of war at her convenience. 

There are some who feel that Americans, on the 
whole, would be glad to be rid of the Philippines, and 
would welcome any chance to transfer the responsibil- 

^Ruinous because her American trade, and to a great .;xtent 
the rest of her trade, would be automatically destroyed. 



204 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

ities to another nation. This may be true, if it could be 
done in a legislative way, but to lose them in war, to 
have them taken by force, would be much more likely 
to rouse all the fighting blood in the American people 
and make them determined to keep the islands at all 
hazard ; would, in fact, commit us irrevocably to the pos- 
session of them. 

However,- to continue our former assumption, — 
concede that Japan by a sudden coup captures the 
Philippines, which is a very probable contingency in 
the event of war. Concede, if you will, that the Amer- 
ican fleet is destroyed so that we are helpless. Assume 
even that we have been forced to consent to an in- 
glorious peace. Japan would then have achieved her 
design. She would be in undisputed possession of these 
treasure islands of the Pacific at the cost of a few 
broadsides. (Whether any European power would in- 
terfere at this stage is worthy of consideration, but we 
need not include such a contingency at present. J 

Japan would then have on her hands a very large 
group of tropical islands with a decidedly mixed popu- 
lation. Some of the people are savage or part savage ; 
some are fanatical Moros, and about 7,000,000, or one 
seventh of the population of Japan, are various sorts 
of Filipinos with a physical inheritance Malay, and 
a spiritual inheritance Spanish; that is to say, Ro- 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 305 

man Catholic with a mediaeval attitude toward the 
heathen. 

Japan would find herself in essentially the same 
position in which we were at the close of the Spanish 
war. It took us three years of exasperating guerilla 
warfare before opposition to our presence finally dis- 
appeared. And how did we succeed at last? By 
killing off as many of the population as possible? 
Hardly; if that had been our policy, we should be 
doing it still. ,We only succeeded when we convinced 
the Filipinos that we were not there to exploit them. 
This is a truth that no one acquainted with the facts 
would think of denying. We have given of our best 
as only a very wealthy nation can. We have respected 
the religious prejudices of our new wards, whatever 
they were. In the personal relations we have treated 
them with unswerving honesty and fair dealing. In 
short, we have assumed an obligation of humanity, 
although not without the hope, perhaps, that our 
bread cast upon the Pacific might return after not too 
many days. 

Now the obvious presumptions are against Japan 
playing that sort of a role. We have already com- 
mented^ upon the peculiar difficulties that Japan 
,would be called upon to face in the event of an occu- 
iSee page 103 ff. 



2o6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

pation of the archipelago. She would find all the pop- 
ulation arrayed against the " heathen " invader, and in 
remote quarters which she could not hope to subdue. 
At once the old inter-tribal feuds would break out 
again. In short, anarchy would reign in the islands, 
mitigated here and there by military despotism. This 
sort of occupation would cost Japan as it did the United 
States.^ Japanese statesmen might then begin to won- 
der when the profits came in. The potential wealth 
of the Philippines, as we have seen, is enormous; but 
it is only available under conditions of protracted peace. 
Metals, hardwoods, hemp, rubber, — these products are 
only translatable into money by peaceful commerce. 
The first gun fired at Manila would mean the total 
collapse of all the money-making machinery in the is- 
lands. Moreover, the development of commerce there 
waits upon the investment of large amounts of capital, 
that of which Japan herself is so greatly in need, and 
under any circumstances the wealth of a country is in 
the hands of the people who make it and it would be a 
generation before Japan as a nation could profit by oc- 
cupying the Philippines. It would be much better busi- 
ness to let Uncle Sam make the investments and take 

^In August, 1911, General Leonard Wood, then Chief of Staflf, 
stated that "For the past ten or twelve years our army expense 
had been $167,486,000 in excess of the cost of maintaining an army 
of similar size in this country." 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 207 

the responsibilities and then to develop a peaceful com- 
merce with the islands, as England does. On the whole, 
if Japanese statesmen have ever contemplated enrich- 
ing their nation by seizing the Philippines, it would be 
well for them to carefully consider the debit side of the 
account. 

The fourth consideration, that of seizing the islands 
for the purpose of turning them over to some other 
power, need not detain us. Any other power would 
have almost the same difficulty that has been just de- 
scribed. But more than this, the last thing in the world 
that Japan would seek would be to intrench a rival 
power in the Far East. America is for her innocuous, 
for America has never had nor ever will have any idea 
of territorial aggression in China. So far as Japan 
is concerned, American possession of the Philippines 
" neutralizes " them for her. This would not be the 
case with any other power. To make this clear — al- 
though it is the purest speculation of course — let us 
conceive of a situation in which the United States should 
be at war with another power. Just as was the case 
with Spain, we should be vulnerable to attack in the 
Philippines. We can believe that rather than permit 
any other power to take the Philippines from us, Japan 
would come to the rescue as an ally. For it is ob- 
viously so much to her advantage that we, rather than 



2o8 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

a European nation, should hold the islands, that war 
might seem to her justifiable to prevent our possession 
of them being threatened. 

But from the standpoint of national profit, there is 
another aspect of the case which must be included. 
It is not without significance that America is the only 
large nation that buys more of Japan than she sells. 
The declaration of war would put an end to this. What 
Japan makes of us as profit in a year ($31,000,000 in 
19 13) practically pays the interest on her national debt 
abroad. With any other country her foreign trade 
might cease and, temporarily, Japan would be the gainer. 
This would not be true for the United States. The 
$70,000,000 of silk and tea which she annually sells 
us would have to seek (in vain) another market. The 
American cotton which she requires in order to hold 
the Chinese market she would no longer have, and In- 
dian cotton, if hostilities continued, would drive the 
Japanese from the Chinese field. 

In all her foreign trade, which she has so sedulously 
cultivated for many years, equally hard conditions 
would obtain; for an inspection of Japan's foreign trade 
summaries reveals the interesting fact, that with the ex- 
ception of China, the great bulk of her exports to other 
countries are luxuries and the great bulk of her imports 
are necessities. We are discovering now how the con- 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 209 

fusion of war affects the business of so solvent a nation 
as the United States, far from any active campaigning. 
How much more devastating for Japan would be the 
effect of a war with a nation with which she is so inti- 
mately and dependently connected, as the United States ; 
always keeping in mind, of course, that the original pre- 
mise was based upon the idea that such a war would be 
profitable. 

So far, in order not to complicate the argument, w« 
have omitted the consideration of two factors which 
should not be ignored. First of these is the United 
States fleet which, now that the Panama canal is com- 
pleted, should be an additional hazard to be taken into 
account by Japan if she contemplates hostility. Sec- 
ondly, we have dealt with only the two nations, Japan 
and ourselves. The first of these we need not consider 
otherwise than to mention it, since we are not con- 
cerned so much with the probable course of a conflict as 
with the question whether Japan will bring on such a 
conflict, and the American fleet figures in such a discus- 
sion only to the extent to which it enters into the cal- 
culations of the Japanese. As to this we know nothing. 
It is likely, however, that other considerations should 
be much more of a deterrent than the opposition of a 
fleet which is subject always to the possibility of elim- 
ination by defeat. The second point is more significant. 



2IO JAPANESE EXPANSION 

It is difficult, almost impossible, to conceive of such a 
conflict being limited to the two powers primarily in- 
volved. Just as in Europe, the declaration of war upon 
Servia by Austria brought the whole house of cards 
tumbling down, so in a very different way does the 
Pacific situation involve much more than Japan and the 
United States. 

We may decry racial antagonism as much as we 
please. It remains an historical fact that has been the 
cause of much woe to empire builders who have ignored 
it. Those who have traveled about the earth and who 
have the leisure and opportunity to read and observe 
may reflect that men are pretty much alike the world 
over, that the good and evil in different races balance 
off rather well and that criticism of a foreigner's char- 
acteristics is bad taste in one who realizes by comparison 
the faults in his own kind. But the mass of the popu- 
lation in any country, imbred and provincial, whose 
whole energy is exerted in gaining a hard living, whose 
prejudices become elevated into precepts, and whose 
peculiarities are exalted to virtues, to such as these, a 
genial cosmopolitanism is denied. Toward the stranger 
they have the instinctive antipathy of the street dog 
toward the stray cur who has wandered out of his usual 
orbit. 

Race prejudice is an evil, and we should strive by 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 211 

every possible means to eradicate it, for our own sake. 
But we cannot ignore it. It is a state of mind, if you 
like, without material reason for being, but we cannot 
cure it, as we can some personal disorders, by ceasing to 
think about it. 

Now to any one who examines the facts, the most 
striking characteristic of the white peoples that in- 
habit the lands bordering the Pacific is their instinct of 
racial solidarity against the Oriental. I should not call 
it enmity, for it is, as a rule, impersonal. At bottom, 
the difficulty is an economic one, and for that reason so 
fundamental that it transcends the artificial divisions 
of nationalism. 

When Japan fought Russia, Germany and France 
did not view the situation with equanimity, although 
they did not interfere, partly because of the Anglo- 
Japanese alliance, and partly because the battlefield was 
many thousand miles away. Like China, Japan has 
profited by the mutual jealousies of the " Powers," 
and the reluctance of any of them to offer a lead to any 
other. 

But should Japan declare war against the United 
States, particularly on the plan so often discussed in 
this country, the situation from the European stand- 
point would be very much graver. Were the antagonist 
any other than an Oriental one, we may well believe 



212 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

that a good many European nations would view the 
thorough trouncing of the United States with com- 
placency. But the defeat of any leading Occidental 
power by Japan would be a calamity from the stand- 
point of any nation in Europe. England would with- 
out doubt be given the immediate alternative of re- 
nouncing the Japanese alliance or of losing Canada and 
Australia from the Empire. At any rate it is incon- 
ceivable that England should be anything but neutral 
in a matter in which her own self-interest would be so 
much concerned. But with England neutral, that is, 
with Japan deprived of the backing of the English alli- 
ance, both Russia and Germany would appear on the 
scene of continental Asia, the one with keen recollections 
of Port Arthur and Dalny and the other with equally 
keen remembrance of Kiao-Chau, and both ready to 
seize the long-deferred chance to secure themselves in 
China by evicting the Japanese. 

Japan would find herself isolated, beggared, and with 
all the delicate structure of her new and hardly won 
economic development crumbling to ruins about her. 
In the midst of a world of enemies, she would fight on, 
no doubt, indefinitely. For there are no braver folk 
on earth, no more steadfast and loyal to their own, than 
the fifty million stout-hearted people who fill the islands 
of the Japanese Empire. But is it very reasonable 



THE CHANCES OF WAR 213 

that she should deliberately bring on all this, in the be- 
lief that she would profit thereby? 

There are some* who grant that there is no im- 
mediate danger of conflict on the Pacific, but who, tak- 
ing a long-range view, looking down the vista of the 
twentieth century, foresee certain trouble from the very 
fact that two strong powers are bound to rub elbows 
with one another in the Pacific. 

It is very difficult to conceive of what the next two 
decades will bring forth in any part of the world. The 
political writer who, by drawing on his imagination, 
should have attempted fifty years ago to describe the 
war of 19 14, with its submarines and its aeroplanes, 
its siege howitzers and its wireless telegraphy, yes, even 
its automobiles and bicycles, would have been laughed 
into oblivion as a Jules Verne without the saving grace 
of probability. Any writer of 181 5 who should have 
attempted to foresee the probable relations that would 
exist between England and the United States at the 
end of the century would have been wide of the mark 
in just the degree to which he should have based his 
predictions upon actual knowledge of current history of 
that time and an understanding of the trend of the past. 

The belief that conflict is sure to come in the course 
of time is a vicious one; illogical because based upon 
1 Mr. Mann is apparently of this group. See page 2. 



214 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

no data that may be relevant to the future and im- 
politic because a persistent fear stimulates the feeling 
of reprisal and aggression. 

We owe a duty to our grandchildren not to place 
difficulties in their way by inconsiderate action now, 
and naturally, we should shape our present course with 
as intelligent an appreciation of future conditions as is 
possible to get, but after all, instead of a policy based 
upon specific conditions that may, or may not, come to 
pass, our best legacy to posterity will be the record of 
foreign relations carried on as successful business is 
carried on between individuals, that is, based upon com- 
mon honesty and the recognition of the rights of 
others. 



CHAPTER VIII 
'japan's dilemma 

We have already noted the small amount of arable 
land in Japan proper. A yearly gross increase in the 
population of 682,000 creates a problem that is diffi- 
cult of solution. It is nearly the number of all the 
factory operatives in the country. In other words, the 
agricultural limit has been nearly reached on the one 
hand, and on the other, no imaginable development of 
industrialism can provide work indefinitely for so many 
new hands. Migration seems to be the only relief, 
and the internal pressure of population will seek a vent 
at any possible outlet. This contingency is perhaps 
not now so imminent as might be thought, since large 
areas in the Hokkaido are but sparsely inhabited. 
These northern provinces are fertile, but the winters 
are severe and they will not accommodate many extra 
millions. Sooner or later the pressure of population 
will be felt throughout the Empire. 

A glance at the map of the Pacific will reveal the 
possibilities for Japanese emigration. Beginning with 
Alaska, except for the break of British Columbia, the 

215 



2i6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Pacific is bordered by the territories of the United 
States down to the thirty-second parallel. Then comes 
Mexico, Central and South America; next Australia, 
the Dutch Indies, and the Philippines; then China 
proper, lastly Manchuria, Korea, and Siberia. 

We may as well disregard the idea of extensive Jap- 
anese colonization of North America or Australia, at 
least for the present. China is over-populated already. 
Siberia is out of the question, for the Japanese is not 
the type of the hardy pioneer. The Philippines we 
have already considered. There is left South America 
and the adjacent Orient. 

Brazil, Peru, and Chile, it is understood, have made 
overtures looking to Japanese colonization. They would 
be welcomed in those scantily settled regions as they 
would not be in more northern states. A Japanese 
steamship line connects Japan with South America, and 
it may be that sometime in the future we shall see a 
considerable immigration into the more temperate parts 
of the southern continent. 

Brazil, seeking cheap labor to develop her industries, 
has made great concessions both to Germany and to 
Japan. As a result of the former there is a thriving 
German colony in the South American republic. Brazil 
is said to have offered a free grant to Japan of 122,500 
acres in Sao Paulo, with the privilege of buying more, 



japan's dilemma 217 

and free transportation for the emigrants. It is of- 
ficially stated that the Japanese population in Brazil is 
but 10,000, but it is claimed that two or three times that 
number are under contract on the coffee plantations. 

Peru, like Brazil, has welcomed the Japanese and 
made similar concessions to them. There are probably 
many more in Peru than in Brazil, and they appear to 
have adapted themselves very well. 

Mexico in turn has tried to turn some of the tide her 
:way, but the political conditions in Mexico have sufficed 
to greatly restrict such emigration. 

But South America, particularly its eastern portion, 
is many thousands of miles from Japan, and connection 
with the northern country would always be rather 
tenuous for Oriental colonists there. Moreover, it is 
the avowed policy (as well as the logical poHcy) of the 
government to direct Japanese immigration toward 
adjacent territory rather than to distant parts of the 
earth. Not only are perplexing social and economic 
problems incident to contact with wholly alien races 
thus avoided, but the colonizing Japanese are thereby 
concentrated and occupy the new territory far more 
effectively than they would if scattered to the ends of 
the earth. This is of particular significance in the 
practical occupation of the sparsely settled province of 
South Manchuria. 



2i9 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

When we come to the Orient, Formosa at once claims 
attention. But Formosa has proven an unexpected 
problem for Japan. This island, ceded to her as a 
prize of war at the conclusion of the struggle with 
China, has many of the superficial aspects of the Philip- 
pines. Its area is about 15,000 square miles, but it is 
very mountainous and wild and its population is made 
up of a number of fierce and uncivilized tribes who are 
constantly at war. The climate is hot and the Jap- 
anese cannot endure labor in the open, as can the Chi- 
nese and hillmen. As a consequence, they mostly con- 
gregate in the coast cities. Every effort has been 
made by the central government to stimulate coloniza- 
tion and induce Japanese to migrate to Formosa, but 
in spite of subsidies and financial aids of all sorts, in 
the twenty years during which the island has been in 
the possession of Japan, less than 100,000 Japanese 
have been induced to settle there, amid three and a 
half million aborigines and Chinese.^ The prospect of 
any considerable percentage of surplus population 
overflowing into Formosa or any other part of the 
tropics does not seem bright. 

^In 1912 some 1750 farmers in family groups were assisted by 
the government at a cost of $200,000. These are settled in com- 
munities, about sixty families to a village, the paternal government 
furnishing houses and medical and educational facilities. Each 
family, however, had to have $100 capital. 



japan's dilemma 219 

Manchuria and Korea, on the other hand, are much 
more favorably situated. Either is accessible now, 
within a few hours' steamer and rail journey from 
Japan. 

Korea is the natural outlet for Japan, and since its 
annexation in 191 1, the way has been cleared for ex- 
tensive immigration. The area of Korea is 86,000 
square miles and the Korean population (19 12)' is 
14,566,783, or about 173 to the square mile. Com- 
paring this with Japan or China, it will be seen that 
there is room for many Japanese, in spite of the 
40,000,000 acres of forests and mountains in the pen- 
insula. As a matter of fact, there were probably not 
more than 50,000 Japanese in Korea ten years ago, 
whereas there are now more than 200,000. As a Japan- 
ese publicist puts it : " Each square mile in Japaln has 
contributed six persons to each square mile in Korea." 

Rice, soy beans, and barley are grown in Korea, and 
there may be a future for upland cotton, which would 
be an important factor in the development of Japanese 
industry. Silk is also an important product. But the 
most striking feature of Korea is the opportunity it 
affords for stock raising. If the Japanese can break 
away from their conventional point of view, and, in- 
stead of producing a scant crop of rice at the expense 
of infinite labor, devote themselves to the raising 



220 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

of cattle and hogs, without doubt they can develop a 
source of wealth in Korea beside which the gold mines 
would be insignificant. For the Japanese have a fond- 
ness for beef, and if it were made cheaper, it would be 
of vast benefit to the nation to introduce it more ex- 
tensively into the national diet. The by-products 
would also be made use of as effectively as they are in 
America. On the other hand, the Chinese are fond of 
pork, and hogs raised on the farms and pastures of 
Korea would find a ready market near at hand. The 
fisheries also provide a maintenance for great numbers 
of Japanese. On the whole, Korea affords a congenial 
and remunerative field for Japanese expansion. Emi- 
grants cannot make money so fast, nor so easily there, 
as they can in California, but their settling stirs up no 
new sources of trouble. The native Korean must ac- 
commodate himself as best he can. 

Japan had a foothold in Manchuria before Korea was 
definitely annexed, and of course annexation could 
never have been accomplished so long as Russian in- 
fluence was all powerful in Manchuria. There is little 
likelihood that Japan will relinquish what of the latter 
province she holds, and the more she can settle her 
citizens there, the stronger will be her claim to the 
whole south province. The problem is a somewhat diffi- 
cult one, however, and one fraught with peculiar dangers. 



JAPAN'S DILEMMA 221 

To those who have been accustomed to consider 
Manchuria as a part of China (as it still is in diplomatic 
fiction) a comparison of the relative density of popu- 
lation between this province and the other eighteen 
provinces of China is startling. The area of China 
proper is 1,588,000 square miles,^ with an estimated 
population of 407,518,750; that is, a concentration of 
256 per square mile throughout the Empire. The con- 
centration in the populous coastal provinces, however, 
is double that. (The concentration in Japan is 342 per 
square mile, exceeded only by Great Britain and Bel- 
gium.) Manchuria has an area of 376,800 square 
miles and a population (before the Russian war) of 
8,500,000. This represents a concentration oi 22}^ per 
square mile, about equal to that of Kansas and much 
less than that of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The al- 
most untouched natural resources and the agricultural 
possibilities of this country are sufficient to support a 
population many times greater than the present one, 
so long as peace is maintained and industry encouraged. 
Here would seem to be a natural outlet for Japan's 
surplus population, and indeed, since the Russian war, 
the national government has made every endeavor to 
induce an immigration to South Manchuria, now under 

1 These figures are from L. Richard, "Geographie de I'Empire 
de Chine." 



222 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Japanese control. The stimulus of subsidized railways 
and steamship lines, of freight and customs rebates, 
and even less justifiable means have been used in the 
aid of Japanese immigrants. 

One reason for the scanty population of Manchuria, 
previous to the building of the railway, was the exist- 
ence of wandering brigands, " Hunghuntzies," who 
terrorized the country. The new government of the 
Japanese is stable, if arbitrary,^ and under its aegis, 
Chinese are attracted as well as Japanese. This may 
be an advantage or otherwise to the Japanese, according 
to circumstances. If the Chinese supply the unskilled 
labor necessary to develop the resources of the country 
and are amenable to Japanese control, it may work out 
to the great advantage of the latter settlers, who would 
thus have the prestige and the profits of employers, 
instead of being employees. If, on the contrary, the 
Chinese assume the position of rivals in commerce and 
industry, it may not work out that way, for it is not at 
all certain that as rivals in the same field the more 
mercurial Japanese is a match for the keen and indus- 
trious Chinese. 

iThe actual legitimate control in the hands of the Japanese is 
confined to the Kuantung district, in which Port Arthur is situ- 
ated, and the regions contiguous to the railway, its branches, and 
the mines. This, however, very effectively dominates the province. 



japan's dilemma 223 

We have already mentioned a well-known rule in 
theoretical finance termed Gresham's law, the essence 
of which is that in a given locality a baser or cheaper 
metal coinage will drive out of circulation the more 
valuable. An economist has attempted recently to 
apply this law to competing races in the Hawaiian 
Islands and claims to have found the same sort of 
effect, — " cheap " labor displacing higher priced labor. 

It will be of much interest to watch the interplay of 
racial influences in Manchuria from this standpoint. 
Before the Russians came, stable government seems 
hardly to have existed outside the large cities, and, of 
course, where the economic motive was lacking, settlers 
stayed away. The Russians not only brought order 
but stimulated industry very greatly by the construc- 
tion of the railway, the fiat city of Dalny, the works 
of Port Arthur, etc. This stimulation was artificial 
and was bound to have come to a natural end soon if 
the rapid progress of events had not brought it to an 
abrupt close by war. The Chinese, however, profited 
greatly by this regime. They migrated into Man- 
churia from Shantung and other provinces, and as 
the Russians paid good wages and were absolutely 
dependent upon this sort of labor for the carrying out 
of their plans, things were in a very satisfactory state 
from the standpoint of the Chinese. A peaceful rule 



224 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

of the country, even if in the hands of foreigners, of- 
fered every advantage for permanent settlers, and the 
Chinese part of the population increased correspond- 
ingly. 

The war, of course, upset things considerably, and 
for a year or so after the Peace of Portsmouth the 
Japanese had everything their own way. But even 
the army men understood that there was no final ad- 
vantage in maintaining a military rule in a country 
whose only use was as a field for commercial exploita- 
tion. And with the withdrawal of the troops and the 
establishment of civil law again, the Chinese once more 
began to settle down. It makes no practical differ- 
ence to a Chinaman whether Manchuria, on the map, 
be Russian, Japanese, or Chinese, so long as he is al- 
lowed to take his profit in peace,^ and it cannot be too 
often repeated that for Manchuria to be ceded to Ja- 
pan entirely would avail the latter country little, so 
long as there were more Chinese than Japanese in the 
province, or so long as those Chinese that are there are 
able to compete to advantage with the Japanese. For 
Japan to attempt to exclude Chinese from Manchuria, 

1 It is true that in the throes of the " rights-recovery " fever a 
few years ago the Chinese made the occupation of Manchuria one 
of the grounds of the great anti-Japanese boycott, yet this agita- 
tion was most conspicuous in Canton, far away. Your Shantung 
Chinaman is a practical man, taking the world as he finds it. 



JAPAN'S DILEMMA 225 

as they are excluded from America, would be practi- 
cally impossible, but if they continue to settle in this 
region in the future as they have in the past, one of 
two things must happen if Japan is to reap any advan- 
tage from the possession of the province. Either more 
Japanese settlers must enter the province than Chinese 
or else those that are there must prove themselves 
more efficient and more successful than the Chinese. 
The latter alternative is very unlikely. The former 
is the problem that faces the government of Japan 
today. 

In her continental ambitions, Japan has two serious 
obstacles to overcome, apart from the natural reluc- 
tance of her people to uproot themselves and settle in 
a new country, as pawns in the great game of higher 
politics. One of these is the opposition of China her- 
self, and the other is that of the European powers, 
Russia, Germany, England, and France, who for many 
years have attempted to sap their way into the terri- 
tory of China, dismember that country, and distribute 
the pieces among themselves. As Japan looks to 
China for her own future market, such an eventuality 
would probably be disastrous to her interests. On 
the other hand, any encroachment upon Chinese terri- 
tory on the part of Japan brings that nation into rivalry 
with the European Powers. In the keen diplomatic 



226 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

contest that has been waged in Pekin for many years, 
the Japanese have played their part with skill, and 
when fortune and an audacious opportunism carried 
Russia down into Manchuria in the early years of the 
century, with the likelihood of dominating Pekin and 
the certainty of dominating Seoul, Japan did not hesi- 
tate to change the game from a diplomatic to a military 
one. It was because Russia utterly failed to under- 
stand Japan's real interests and because Alexieff could 
not believe that she was not " bluffing " that the Rus- 
sians allowed themselves to be dragged into that unfor- 
tunate and unpopular war. 

But Russia has not been the only rival of Japan in 
China. England, so long as she feared the Russian 
bear, deluded herself with the notion that she was 
protecting her interests in Asia by the Anglo- Japanese 
alliance. In reality it was Japan that profited most, 
since by tying the hands of England she eliminated, 
temporarily, another rival. For the natural interests 
of Great Britain — her national instinct, one might 
say — places her in the opposition to Japan in all that 
concerns China. England's trade along the China 
coast led all the rest until very recently, and it has 
chiefly been her partner in the alliance that has played 
the successful rival and reduced the relative importance 
of that trade. No one can say what results will follow 



japan's dilemma 227 

the conclusion of the Great European war. It is 
doubtful, however, if Russia is ever again the bugaboo 
to England that she has been in the past, and if that 
is so, then the chief motive on England's part for main- 
taining the Japanese alliance will disappear, and her 
own interests, as well as the pressure which Canada 
and Australia will exert, will force her into the other 
camp. For the time being, however, her hands are 
tied and the recent retrocession of Wei-hai-wei to China 
eliminates her from further participation in the dis- 
memberment of that unhappy country. 

The third dangerous rival has also but lately been 
eliminated. This is Germany. Germany's activities in 
East Asia have been so startling in their crude aggres- 
siveness, her frank contempt for the Oriental and his in- 
stitutions, and has seemed so likely to make future trou- 
ble, that the " Peace of Asia " seerns a great deal nearer 
realization now that Kiao-Chau.has been captured by 
the Japanese. German trade threatened a serious ri- 
valry to Japan's, and this fact, in addition to the strong 
influence that Germany exerted toward the dismember- 
ment of China, made it highly advantageous to Japan 
that this power be eliminated from the stage of Far East- 
ern politics. Japanese have not forgotten, either, that 
it was Germany who in 1895 led the coalition of the 
Powers that checkmated Japan's first move in the game. 



228 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

What Japan will do with Kiao-Chau is a question 
that may be foolish to speculate upon at the present 
writing. Probably Japan herself does not know very 
definitely. It is unlikely, however, that she will give the 
district back to China, preferring rather to consider her- 
self the heir of the ninety-nine-year lease granted to 
Germany. Port Arthur is of course a precedent for 
such a stand. Shantung, however, is too full of Chi- 
nese to be much of a field for Japanese colonization. 
The actual possession of the province would entail 
heavy expense without any corresponding profit, and 
it will doubtless appear to the Japanese officials that 
eventually more is to be gained by using it as a pledge 
to exact some other quid pro quo from China than by 
indefinitely retaining it. The same consideration would 
prevent Japan from ever conquering or controlling to 
any extent any of the populous provinces of China 
proper. The possibilities lying before such an enter- 
prise would be such as to daunt the boldest gambler in 
Japanese politics. 

The partition of China, therefore, has become, in 
recent years, an apparently remote contingency (unless 
Japan herself essays the task), and England, Germany, 
and Russia no longer threaten Japan's dominance by 
territorial possession. 

But China herself is a factor that must be considered. 



japan's dilemma 329 

This huge unwieldy nation has undergone some startling 
changes within recent years. Some of these changes 
may be more superficial than the casual American 
might believe. The individual Chinaman, except for a 
haircut, is doubtless much the same sort of a man that 
he used to be. But one transforming change has been 
working in the Middle Kingdom that cannot be undone 
and is of profound significance. The Chinese within 
the last decade have discovered themselves, in other 
words have developed a national self -consciousness that 
previously did not exist. The opening up of communi- 
cations in the form of railways, posts, and telegraphs, 
on the one hand, and the development of a vernacular 
press to publish and distribute the news of Asia and the 
world, on the other hand, have combined to transform 
a group of detached provinces with practically nothing 
in common but their ancestry and their ignorance of 
one another into a unified nation. 

In the past, South China has been indifferent to what 
European Powers were doing in North China. Nowa- 
days, the inhabitants of remote parts of the Empire are 
keenly alive to any such encroachments and, further- 
more, a vigorous " rights-recovery " agitation has been 
set going, the purpose of which is to retrieve the losses 
of the past. This movement is patriotic, however un- 
wise it may be. 



230 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

Naturally the new spirit in China does not look with 
any too much favor upon Japan's activities in Man- 
churia, nor, it may be added, in Shantung either. What 
China wants is for Japan to keep out of Chinese terri- 
tory (including Manchuria) altogether. Japan's " mani- 
fest destiny," to say nothing of her pressing necessity, 
on account of the pressure of population, is to do other- 
wise. And as Japan has the army and navy, there is 
not much doubt which contention will prevail. Yet 
complete success would likely be a Pyrrhic victory for 
her, since the motive for her whole national policy is 
the development of an industrial system with particular 
reference to the markets of China. And it is self- 
evident that profitable trade can hardly be forced at 
the point of a gun. 

China is an adept at *' playing both ends against the 
middle" and setting rival powers by the ears. Her 
safety in the past lay in the number of her enemies. 
For the moment, Japan is alone and mistress of the 
situation, but no one knows how long this will last. 
She may have to pay for her temerity, and it is the fear 
of such retaliation that makes her so feverishly pile up 
her armaments, with no enemy in sight. More than this, 
the apparent calm of political conditions in China is 
notoriously deceptive. Any day an explosion may 
occur that will throw that nation into chaos. In such 



JAPAN'S DILEMMA 231 

an event, Japanese intervention would be a foregone 
conclusion, if only to prevent the worse alternative of 
European intervention. 

We are now in a position to appreciate the dilemma 
in which Japanese statesmen find themselves. On the 
one hand, confronted with the absolute necessity of 
transforming their nation from an agricultural into an 
industrial commonwealth; on the other hand, faced 
with the necessity of finding an outlet for a surplus 
population that increases at the rate of three quarters 
of a million a year. In seeking such an outlet they find 
themselves excluded from the greater part of the earth's 
surface and in the most likely quarter, confronted with 
rivals and powerful opponents. To contend with the 
latter they must spend the bulk of their revenues for 
unproductive war machinery instead of putting them 
into profitable industrial machinery. This impoverishes 
the people and necessitates huge foreign loans. It is a 
vicious circle and there seems no stopping place. It 
might appear as if every penny of revenue were already 
extracted from a long-suffering people. Yet one more 
asset remains. The standing of Japanese bonds in- 
dicates that the borrowing power of the nation has 
been nearly reached. If the Manchurian-Korean situa- 
tion demands more expenditure still, then the only 
way that any considerable amount of money could be 



232 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

raised abroad would be to hypothecate national assets 
such as some of the monopolies, or the customs, and 
this would be the beginning of the end of Japan, as a 
first-class power. 

American readers, it is hoped, will appreciate that 
Japan's armaments are necessitated by her interests in 
continental Asia and that to use them in another quarter 
(i.e. against the United States) would be to incite at- 
tack in the very place in which she is most vulnerable 
and which is of the most consequence to her. 

Is there a way out for Japan and the rest of the world ? 
Will the nations ever learn that the attempt to grab 
everything in sight simply to prevent another from 
grabbing leads to complicated ruin? We insist upon 
the Monroe Doctrine for America. Why not for Japan 
in Asia? The cautious engineer provides a safety valve 
for his own protection, not primarily for that of his 
boiler. Why not provide a safety valve for Japan and 
help our own peace of mind? 

When dreams do not come out right, we sometimes 
fall asleep again and dream them over. But we cannot 
roll back the carpet of history. Asia can never again 
be what it was before the Cassini convention. Korea is 
a part of Japan now and South Manchuria is under her 
control. Let us accept the situation. China may 
well heed Japan's contention that she took them, not 



japan's dilemma 233 

from her, but from Russia, against whom the former 
was helpless. Japan's needs for expansion are real 
and obvious. Manchuria and Korea could hold the 
double of the Japanese population. Why try to " head 
her off " ? They are her safety valve. If the stream 
flows that way, it will not flow to us, nor to Canada and 
Australia. If Japan does not fear aggression in Asia 
nor opposition in her natural trends, she need not break 
her back with the enormous burden of armament and 
she therefore may be able to build up her industrial 
system as she wishes to. If she could do so, and could 
become strong and wealthy, instead of impoverished 
and debt-burdened, it would profit Russia more, and 
Germany and England more, than if any of these coun- 
tries "owned" or administered any territory in East 
Asia. For a wealthy Japan means a bigger market for 
European and American goods, and a Japan impover- 
ished by the necessities of armed defense means the 
loss of such a market. Why, then, cannot the white 
nations profit themselves by assisting, instead of try- 
ing to block, Japan? For this seems to be the way 
out for her and for us. 

Summary 

Japan, with a rapidly increasing population, has 
nearly reached the limit in the home country. In- 



234 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

ternal pressure of population and the expanding energy 
of the people forced her to seek an outlet. Racial 
opposition, dense population, or climatic conditions 
limit the field of such expansion, except in the con- 
tiguous territories of Korea and Manchuria. In these 
provinces, however, Japan has encountered the an- 
tagonism both of China and of various European Powers 
intent upon territorial aggrandizement. In order to 
control the situation, Japan has been compelled to 
fight two wars and build up an expensive military 
equipment that is breaking her down financially. So 
long as other nations threaten Japan's natural expan- 
sion, she will be compelled to maintain this armed 
preparedness. In the writer's opinion it would profit 
the other Powers' selfish interest to no longer oppose 
this movement, on the ground that a solvent Japan is 
of more value to them than a bankrupt Japan. Japan's 
future commercial prosperity depends upon the in- 
tegrity of China and her interests in that quarter are 
consonant with those of America. We need not fear 
that Japan will ever permanently control China proper, 
even as the result of a successful war. There are too 
many Chinese, and it would be too* expensive an under- 
taking. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 

In the previous chapter the Monroe Doctrine was 
mentioned. As this is a subject that touches America 
very nearly it may be profitable to examine it in more 
detail. 

The United States until very recently can hardly claim 
to hav,e had a foreign policy, in the European sense. 
The isolation of America, due to the two oceans that 
wash her shores, has rendered unnecessary the careful 
consideration of " policy " required of the states of 
Europe whose alien peoples are separated almost en- 
tirely by artificial boundaries. Moreover, there have 
been in America no dynastic houses the perpetuation and 
aggrandizement of which would have been the occasion 
for the formulation of " policies " unconnected with the 
economic needs of the people. 

In Washington's famous "Farewell Address" he 
warned us to beware of " entangling alliances " and we 
have followed that injunction very literally. Whether 
we can continue this policy much longer is very doubtful 
since our national interests are now no longer confined 
to the New World and our former isolation is now gone. 

235 



236 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

On the other hand, the American people and their 
leaders have cherished one dogma with a reverence that 
has been at times the source of much irritation to Europe. 
This is the famous Monroe Doctrine. 

After Napoleon had been finally disposed of at Water- 
loo, a reaction set in in Europe that aroused great fear 
in the hearts of American statesmen, — a fear that was 
only too well justified. For the " Holy Alliance " of 
Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and Spain was or- 
ganized with the avowed purpose of rooting out, once 
and for all, the growth of democratic ideas that had 
made such headway in Europe during the latter half of 
the eighteenth century. The weak and struggling re- 
public of the United States had every reason to fear this 
combination, for one of the objects of the alliance was 
to retrieve its waning influence in the New World, to re- 
store to Spain the control over her revolted American 
colonies, to gtt back for France the great territories in 
the northern continent that had passed from her hands, 
and in particular to block off any further expansion of 
the United States. And in spite of the fact that the 
liberal tendencies of Great Britain forbade her to join 
the Holy Alliance the people of the United States had 
been in conflict with that nation so recently that they 
feared her most of all. 

The Spanish colonies of South America had taken ad- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 237 

vantage of the collapse of Spanish power to free them- 
selves from her tyranny. And the North Americans, so 
lately become independent, could not help but look with 
friendly sympathy upon these newer states, founded on 
democratic principles and modeled, externally at least, 
after their own government. 

Thus the New World, from the standpoint of ideals, 
was sharply opposed to Europe; the one, the center of 
democracy; the other, the focus of reactionism and ab- 
solution. The enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine 
was, in fact, the expression of the instinct of self-preser- 
vation, than which, we are taught, there is no higher law. 

The events of the first half of the nineteenth century 
amply justified this point of view. The Spanish claims 
to the whole Pacific Coast and their refusal to cede 
Florida to the United States although themselves unable 
to control that province, the English claims to the North- 
west, the startlingly rapid extension of Russian influence 
in the same region,^ the encroachment of all the Euro- 
pean Powers upon the Latin- American states, which cul- 
minated in the attempt of the French to seat the Aus- 
trian Maximilian, as Emperor, upon the throne of 
Mexico, — such a succession of incidents might well in- 

^In 1821, the Russian government forbade any foreign vessel 
to approach within 100 miles of the west coast of America down 
to the 51st degree of latitude. 



238 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

spire fear in the youthful republic. It is not too much 
to say that the energetic pretensions of the United States 
prevented both South and North America from being por- 
tioned out among the powers of Europe as Africa has been 
and as Asia is likely to be. And this, in spite of the fact 
that it has been the menace of England rather than our 
own prowess that has deterred the Continental powers. 
The Monroe Doctrine has been thus a most significant 
factor in our short 'national life. Even if we should as- 
sume that our great territorial expansion was not ab- 
solutely necessary, that the American people might have 
worked out their salvation in a territory limited, let us 
say, by the Mississippi River, more intensively but 
equally successfully, it would still remain true that had 
the rest of the continent been the scene of the schemings 
and dickering of European powers, with "spheres of 
influence " and a finely adjusted " balance of power " 
the nature of that destiny would have been very different. 
The possibility of conflict on our borders would have 
necessitated a large army, and the presence of many 
alien powers would have compelled international rela- 
tions and obligations from which, happily, we have been 
free. Americans have done well to give the Monroe 
Doctrine the place it has in our estimation, notwithstand- 
ing the United States is no longer weak and that she has 
little to fear nowadays from European aggression. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 239 

In later years the demand of this country has been, in 
substance, that the rest of the world should recognize 
both American continents as her " sphere of influence " 
in that foreign powers shall not be permitted to acquire 
any part of the New World as vassal territory nor even 
to attempt armed intervention. The Monroe Doctrine 
has never been accepted by any European government 
except very recently by England and it is probable that 
it would have been challenged in war ere this had not 
the mutual jealousies of the challenging powers, nota- 
bly Germany and England, acted as a restraint upon 
one another. 

"Asia for the Asiatics 

From the standpoint of modern (European J civiliza- 
tion America and Japan are the newest nations and in 
their relations with the older peoples of Europe whose 
culture has in varying degree been transmitted to both 
of them, they share many problems in common. Each 
is the dominant economic and military power in a large 
area of the earth's surface. Each is the object of the 
thinly veiled jealousy of the " Powers " of Europe. 

Moreover, the attitude of the Chinese toward the 
Japanese is strikingly like that of the Latin- Americans 
toward the people of the United States : a blending of 
respect for acknowledged power, on the one hand, and 



240 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

contempt and personal aversion on the other, due to 
fundamental differences in race and national traditions. 
Now the Monroe Doctrine, as has been said, is far from 
being an unselfish policy, although as a matter of fact 
it has been administered in a very altruistic spirit. The 
North American has no particularly brotherly interest 
in the Latin-American. Primarily for the former the 
policy is one of self-protection; secondarily it is based 
on the belief that the preservation of the national exist- 
ence of these weaker sister states will be ultimately of 
greater advantage to us than would be the case if they 
became provinces of some European power. 

Precisely the same considerations hold with respect to 
China from the standpoint of Japan. The "break-up 
of China " and the parceling out of her provinces among 
the European Powers, which seemed so imminent fifteen 
years ago, threatens the same danger to Japan that a 
similar parceling out of America would have threatened 
to the United States seventy-five years ago. The latter 
met it with the threat or bluff of the Monroe Doctrine 
which, fortunately, she so far has never had to back up 
by force ; Japan has had to defend her interests twice by 
arms, first in the Russian war of 1904 and latterly in the 
Tsingtao chapter of the great European war. It may be 
urged that in both cases Japan has substituted herself 
for the European aggressor and that her policy has been 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 241 

one of aggrandizement. This is to a certain degree 
true, but we must not pass too hasty a judgment. In 
fact, without any intention of extending our own domain 
by conquest, we have done precisely the same thing in 
the Philippines. Nor can we justly claim an analogy be- 
tween Japan's occupancy of South Manchuria and her 
latest activity in Shantung. There is little in common 
between Manchuria and Shantung. The former was 
a sparsely settled province of which China was merely 
the nominal owner. The Russians, and after them the 
Japanese, occupied it as Americans occupied California 
and annexed it for the same reason. Shantung is in 
a different category. No foreign nation can ever effec- 
tively occupy that province. There are too many China- 
men there. What Japan has done is to displace the 
European, and this was a vital matter to her. Russia's 
activity just prior to the war of 1904, her intrigues, 
evasions, and dilly-dallying with Japan, particularly her 
obvious designs in Masampho, left no doubt in any one's 
mind what fate Japan was to expect. Since Russia's 
" set-back," Germany's activities in the Orient have been 
directed toward the same end. After the retrocession of 
Port Arthur, Japan would have been blind indeed to 
have failed to see the consequences to her of Germany's 
avowed policy in the Orient. 

The land-hungry European has been a real menace 



242 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

to Japan's existence as an Oriental power. Since China 
has been impotent to protect herself, it has fallen to 
Japan's lot to come to her rescue, — not, be it under- 
stood, from altruistic concern for China, but as a matter 
of self-interest and protection for herself. 

The American with his nation's history in mind 
and the importance which he himself attaches to the 
Monroe Doctrine ought to be able to keenly appreciate 
Japan's position in this difficulty and to sympathize 
with her as a European might not be expected to do. 
Rightly or wrongly, we believe that much of our national 
success has been due to our insistence upon the Monroe 
Doctrine. Believers, as we are, in the principle of 
" Live and let live," shall we not grant to Japan in her 
greater difficulty the same freedom that we have de- 
manded for ourselves? 

But the question is more than an academic one. 
There are many people in this country who admire Ja- 
pan and wish her well. But such an appeal can hardly be 
made to the majority of Americans, particularly to the 
many to whom Japan looms only as a threatening buga- 
boo. To such it should be brought home that our own 
self-interest demands that we recognize her claim of an 
Asiatic Monroe Doctrine. National policies are and 
should be those of enlightened selfishness. A business 
man who may dispose of his own wealth as he sees fit 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 243 

is bound to safeguard to the extreme the propert}^ of 
which he is a trustee. Statesmen and governments are 
the trustees of a nation and particularly of that nation's 
future generations. We must consider whether it is for 
our future advantage or disadvantage that Japan should 
be supported in her contention. 

It reduces to the question of whether it would be to 
our own advantage or contrariwise that China should 
be the scene of the pulling and hauling diplomacy so 
conspicuously the feature of the past two decades' 
history, or whether we should profit most by the elimina- 
tion of the European Powers (Russia, England, Ger- 
many, and France) from political control of Chinese 
territory and interference in Chinese politics. 

We, in this country, wish peace in the Pacific and its 
shores. We wish to find the greatest possible market 
for our goods in both Japan and China. We have seen 
something of the present status of the Oriental trade. 
We have seen that the greatest current market at present 
is for cotton manufactures ; secondly, for such goods as 
matches, umbrellas, cigarettes, lamps, oil, etc., the use 
of which is easily acquired and is increasing in China. 
In the third rank are the manufactures, the use of which 
will have to be acquired by the Chinese as their scale of 
living changes, — such things as sewing machines, 
electrical appliances, scientific instruments, phonographs. 



2U JAPANESE EXPANSION 

household conveniences, plumbing supplies. We may 
add structural iron and railway equipment. 

The market for these at present is embryonic. Now, 
of the first class, that of cotton yarns and cloths, Japa- 
nese goods are attaining a startlingly rapid ascendancy 
in the Chinese markets. Neither Europe nor America 
can hope to compete with Japanese cotton mills, em- 
ploying work girls at fifteen cents a day and running 
nineteen to twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four.^ 
But, as we have seen, Japan depends to a great extent 
upon American raw cotton to supply this market, since 
a certain admixture is necessary to bring her product to 
the proper standard. In other words, since the Chinese 
customer demands the best he can afford, if Japan should 
attempt to do without American raw cotton, depending 
upon that from China and India, then her control of the 
market would pass. Here, therefore, Japan's success is 
really America's joint-profit and Europe does not count. 

In the second class, all essentially cheap articles, it is 
likely that with the exception of kerosene oil the trade 
will also tend to settle into Japan's hands, although in 
this case in certain lines her competition may come from 
Europe. Oil we shall doubtless continue to supply. 

It is in the third group of manufactures that American 
industry has its greatest opportunity. The product of 

1 U. S. Department of Commerce, Spec. Agt. Rept. 86, p. i86, 1914. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 245 

American workshops, employing the highest grade of 
skilled labor, need not fear competition from the Japa- 
nese, at least not for many years to come. There is 
every reason to believe that the Chinese demand for such 
products will grow apace. Our competitors here, how- 
ever, will he Germany, England, and France. Again we 
find our interests are not threatened by Japan, but by 
those powers that have tried to establish a control over 
large portions of Chinese territory, and have been op- 
posed by Japan in that attempt. 

Commercially, therefore, and from the standpoint 
of strict national selfishness, it is to our advantage to 
keep Europe out of East Asia, which involves the ac- 
ceptance of Japanese dominance in Far Eastern affairs. 
Every consideration points to a community of interest 
between America and Japan with reference to the de- 
velopment of China's trade, provided only that Japan 
does not make the mistake of attempting to monopolize 
the whole trade. 

Such a policy on her part, the attempted closing of 
the " Open Door," in other words, in the long run 
would prove fatal to her best interests, for it would not 
only alienate American sympathy, which is very valuable 
to her, but would stifle or at least delay China's own de- 
velopment, and this would be likewise a disadvantage 
to her. The greater purchasing power that China de- 



H6 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

yelops, the more goods Japan can sell to her, and the 
development of this purchasing power is dependent upon 
foreign capital which Japan is unable to furnish and 
which would not likely be furnished by any other power, 
if Japan should seize political control. 

The Monroe Doctrine has been in the past an un- 
acceptable thesis to the states of Europe. But in 1903 
Great Britain accepted it ** unreservedly." Without 
doubt her motives were not entirely unselfish. She was 
very willing to block Germany from acquiring a large 
slice of South America, which has been the avowed in- 
tention of the latter. But on the other hand, while thus 
protecting herself, she has greatly profited by the kindly 
feeling and the more intimate relations that have de- 
veloped between herself and America. May we not 
take a leaf out of the same book? If we accept the 
Japanese " Monroe Doctrine " with respect to con- 
tinental Asia, we shall not only regain the good will 
of Japan and the advantages of closer and more friendly 
intercourse, but on the other hand we shall profit our- 
selves by assisting in blocking off European aggression 
(passively, of course, but none the less effectively) and 
keeping the Chinese market open to our own trade. 
Indeed we might even make the firm establishment of 
the " Open Door " a quid pro quo in exchange for such 
acknowledgment. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE EAST AND WEST 247 

To repeat, our real competitor in the Chinese market 
is Europe, not Japan. Nothing could suit Europe's 
purpose better than tc divert American sentiment from 
this essential point by stimulating antagonistic feeling 
between the Japanese and ourselves. We have a strate- 
gic advantage over Europe in the contest for the trade 
of the Pacific. It remains to be seen whether we shall 
be fools enough to waste our opportunity antagonizing 
Japan instead of dividing the field with her. 



CHAPTER X 

SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 

The writer has no intention of plunging into proph- 
ecy. He has seen too many prophets in Far Eastern 
matters covered with confusion by the real progress of 
events, to have much faith in his own conjectures. 
Prophecy, except at long range, is a. precarious pastime, 
in any quarter of the globe. But prophecy in Oriental 
politics should be left to the trained writer of romances. 

Yet we must concede it to be a matter of momentous 
significance, that the decisions which America shall be 
called upon to make in the near future, as to her Oriental 
policy, shall be wise decisions; that they shall be based 
upon all the knowledge available regarding this part of 
the world and our place in it, and that they shall be 
illuminated by the light of justice and fair-dealing which 
lies back of any ultimately successful diplomacy. Many 
of us as schoolboys learned the stirring oration of Pat- 
rick Henry in which occurs the phrase : " I have no light 
to guide my footsteps save the lamp of experience." 
We may well ask what our own brief history has to teach 
us regarding our Oriental policy, and with what measure 
of success it is likely to be attended. 

248 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 249 

To this end, I shall briefly review some of the features 
of our long intercourse with England, with which power 
our international relations have been perhaps more 
conflicting than with any other, in the hope of discover- 
ing some parallels between them and the situation with 
regard to Japan. 

We are just getting far enough away from the nine- 
teenth century to begin to get a perspective, to hold it 
off at arm's length, as it were, and appreciate the real 
significance of various incidents and the trend of events, 
and to determine the causes of important effects whose 
nearness has made us hardly conscious of their existence. 
When we do so, one of the most striking things that we 
discover is the fact that while, in the first half of the 
nineteenth century the United States, speaking generally, 
looked upon England with suspicion and distrust, envy 
and fear, and England in turn looked upon us with con- 
tempt not unmixed with exasperation, on the other 
hand, in the first decade of the twentieth century, the 
relations between the two nations had grown so cordial 
and so firmly grounded in reality as to cause the opinion 
to be universally expressed in both countries that war 
between them is unthinkable. 

What has wrought this wondrous change? Why have 
the two nations come to a cordial understanding instead 
of drifting apart in the course of a century? It is of 



250 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

course contrary to all human experience that peoples 
recently at war with one another should forget the 
hatreds engendered by conflict and the disaster wrought 
in battle as soon as a treaty of peace is signed. The 
Revolutionary War was fought out on American soil, 
and it is inevitable that Americans should long cherish 
the ancient grudge, not only against the mother country 
whose stupid policy had made her a tyrannical oppressor 
in the eyes of the colonists, but also against the colonial 
Tories who had taken sides against them and who con- 
centrated across the border in Canada. On the other 
hand, England's interests were all directed toward 
European affairs, and she thought of her former sub- 
jects, whenever she did think of them, as presumptuous 
upstarts whose attempts at starting a democracy were 
foredoomed to failure. England was mistress of the 
seas and the dominant power in the world. This position 
made her imperious and arbitrary, and led to such acts 
as the enforcement of the right of search on American 
vessels and the impressment of seamen, which culminated 
in the second war of 1 812, a war that renewed all the vin- 
dictive feelings toward Great Britain inherited from the 
previous conflict. The treaty of Ghent, at the conclu- 
sion of this war, did not decide the real issues, although 
the return of Napoleon from Elba diverted all attention 
in Europe from affairs across the ocean. The treaty of 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 251 

Ghent " did not weaken the conviction in the minds of 
many Americans that a leading principle of British policy 
was to bully and dragoon the United States into a condi- 
tion of dependence as near as possible to that which had 
been thrown off in 1776; it did not extinguish the fear 
among the English in Canada that the United States was 
resolutely bent on conquering and annexing them ; it did 
not qualify the belief widespread among the ruling aris- 
tocracy in England that the American democracy was a 
barbarous, brawling political organization whose growth 
was to be restricted by all possible means in the interests 
of civilization. For each of these various beliefs there 
was not lacking a certain foundation in fact." ^ 

Following the war of 18 12 we have had no other 
armed conflict with Great Britain, but we had had an 
astonishing succession of exasperating controversies 
both with England and with Canada. The early part of 
the century was the period of an extraordinary expansion 
on our part and conquest of territory, some of which has 
only recently become adequately settled. England felt 
it her duty to obstruct us so far as possible in all this. 
In Florida, in Oregon, in California, and in Texas she 
endeavored to prevent us from assuming control of the 
new territories. Although she failed in all except the 
northern part of Oregon, yet the distrust and resentment 

1 Dunning, " The British Empire and the United States." 1914. 



252 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

engendered in America by her policy fanned the old 
flame and kept it alive. Moreover, she maintained 
the " right of search " which the United States could not 
concede, on the ground that it impaired her sovereignty. 
And it was not until 1858 that England finally acceded 
to the American point of view. 

The Civil War, to the European soothsayer, marked 
the end of the extraordinary experiment of democracy. 
The ultimate success of the Southern cause was never 
questioned in England, and her decision to maintain 
strict neutrality (which involved the right to sell ships 
and arms to whomsoever she pleased) had the result 
of exciting anger and resentment on the part of both 
belligerents, each of whom ascribed a large share of its 
troubles to her attitude. It is not strictly true that 
England favored the Confederate cause, in spite of the 
notorious case of the Alabama, but it would have been 
impossible to convince a Northerner of that fact. 

In 1847 and 1848 the terrible famine in Ireland drove 
hordes of starving Irish to America, and the immigration 
increased until the Irish element of our population be- 
came an important one. The average Celt has two 
characteristics that are of great significance in con- 
sidering him as an element of the American population. 
These are his fondness for politics and his hatred of 
England and all her works. The former gave him a 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE F'UTURE 253 

chance to play an important part in our democracy 
and the latter became an irresistible source of appeal 
in the hands of political leaders interested in securing 
the Irish vote. In consequence, no grievance against 
England was ever allowed to die down, but " twisting 
the lion's tail " became recognized as the most effective 
weapon in political campaigning. All this tended to 
keep alive the anti-English feeling, until, being over- 
done, it lost its effect. 

The climax of all this sentiment came with the famous 
Venezuela incident of President Cleveland's administra- 
tion. The English were wholly unable to comprehend 
the American attitude in a matter in which rationally 
they might be expected to have scant interest. The ex- 
planation seems to be that unconsciously, or subcon- 
sciously, the American people were looking for a chance 
to demonstrate their coming-of-age politically, and their 
right to a voice in the settling of the world's affairs. 
England conceded this point then, and from that time 
on, Anglo-American relations have been relatively tran- 
quil. When the throw of the dice made of the United 
States a colonizing power, far from opposing us, Eng- 
land consistently aided and applauded us, knowing that 
in shouldering the " white man's burden " we have made 
her cause our own. 

England's ministers have often been noted for their 



254 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

lack of tact, but rarely for a lack of good sense. They 
have long realized that war between England and 
America would be economically so disastrous for her 
that no possible gain in territory or in prestige could 
compensate for it. They have waited with a greater or 
less degree of calmness until we should mature suffi- 
ciently to realize the same fact. 

In the earlier decades of our national existence we 
were not unlike an overgrown boy with his first pair of 
long trousers, clumsy, crude, obstreperous, and bel- 
ligerent. In the middle of the century we might be said 
to bear a resemblance to the same youth in his late teens, 
when he acquires the use of cigarettes and tilts his hat 
over one ear. Now at last, having passed the hobblede- 
hoy period, we have reached maturity and are ready to 
take a hand in the world's business. And England, like 
ian anxious but not always tactful parent, is more than 
willing to forget the irritations of the past and to take 
us into the firm. What lessons can we read in all this 
that may help us to understand Japan ? 

In the beginning we must confess that nothing like 
the occasions for disagreement between England and 
ourselves have occurred between Japan and ourselves. 
Of course the century is young, and no one knows what 
the next several decades will bring forth. But we have 
no stinging memories of conflict to stir up bitterness. 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 25S 

Even the worst jingo in America has no hatred of the 
Japanese. He merely fears or mistrusts them, or else 
looks down upon them with a toplofty tolerance infi- 
nitely more galling than hatred. The " Jap is cocky." 
" He is dishonest and tricky." " He knows not the sanc- 
tity of contract." " He has no morals or home life." 
These, after all, are mild aspersions compared with the 
English view of an American a half century ago. 
" Swagger and ferocity, built on a foundation of vul- 
garity and cowardice," are the characteristics of "an 
ideal Yankee," said the London Times discussing the 
Mason and Slidell affair in 1861.^ 

England has forgotten these brave words and many 
like them and so has America, though more slowly, 
for nothing lingers quite so long in the mind as the sting 
of a contemptuous speech. But how much better it 
would have been if they had never been said. And 
can we not take a lesson from our own experience and 
refrain from the same kind of utterance, knowing how 
useless it is and how productive of ill feeling. 

The Japanese may be expected to overlook the 
heated language of the man in the street or of the editor 
of a yellow newspaper (the Japanese themselves have a 
press of which the hues of saffron exceed anything 
known in this country J; but the speeches of members 
1 Quoted by Dunning, t.c. 



256 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

of Congress and of Senators are on a different status. 
As a nation we have discarded the bumptious practice of 
" twisting the lion's tail." But there is danger that in 
seeking an outlet for our energies we may grow too much 
accustomed to airing our suspicions of the motives of 
our Oriental neighbors. We are in danger of getting 
the " Japanese habit," as some one has called it. 

The " certain condescension in foreigners," partic- 
ularly Englishmen, the tacit assumption of superiority, 
the unmerited satires of Dickens, Mrs. Trollope, and the 
rest, — the older generation among us still recall how 
productive of ill feeling they were, and how really sig- 
nificant in postponing a settlement of differences and the 
establishment of cordial relations between ourselves and 
Great Britain. With this recollection so fresh in our 
minds, may we not appreciate the advisability of not 
doing " as we have been done by " anent Japan ? 

For many years the irreconcilable difference between 
Great Britain and the United States was the former's 
insistence upon the right of search, — a small matter to 
insist upon, we think to-day, and one that might have 
been conceded the new republic without damaging the 
prestige of the British Empire. Suggestive of analogy 
is the Japanese contention that our laws, whether local 
ones regarding schools or state ones regarding land- 
ownership, should recognize the Japanese as on a par 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 257 

with the European and American, a contention which 
every one with enough knowledge of the subject to be 
entitled to an opinion knows to be just. In this case it is 
we that will not concede the point ; but shall we allow it 
to muddy the water for years as England did the former 
question, to no profit to ourselves, but rather to the detri- 
ment of cordial international relations? This of course 
does not imply unlimited immigration. 

Japan is passing through her own hobbledehoy period. 
Her cockiness, her bumptiousness, her exaggerated sense 
of dignity, her concern to be recognized as an interna- 
tional power ; all these phenomena we ourselves have dis- 
played in our time and with far greater crudity. It was 
a passing phase with us and it will be with the newer 
nation if we do not take it too seriously. At any rate, 
nothing is so futile, so stupid, as international recrimina- 
tions. We have much to gain by retaining Japan's per- 
sonal friendship, we have ever)rthing to lose by losing it. 

England's attempts to limit our expansion to the Pa- 
cific were based upon a priori considerations, not on her 
own desires for that territory. The United States ex- 
panded through its own exuberant energy rather than 
through necessity or pressure of population, and Eng- 
land's attempts at hindrance roused the fiercest resent- 
ment.* Japan's present-day expansion is also partly a, 

1 The slogan of 1844, " Fifty- four Forty or Fight," will be rfscalled. 



258 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

phenomenon of national vigor as well as of economic 
pressure, and the attempts of foreign nations to curb it 
excite the same resentment that we ourselves have ex- 
perienced. Again, have we any call to put ourselves on 
the side of Japan's opponents? 

To summarize : During the past century, we have had 
many acrimonious disputes with England and our self- 
love has suffered from her affronts. Our Irish con- 
tingent has constantly kept the kettle boiling until we 
learned to think of her as our hereditary enemy. In 
the end, we have outgrown these feelings and have come 
to realize the value of an international friendship with 
Great Britain. How much more reasonable seems the 
hope that strained relations between Japan and the 
United States shall cease to exist ; two nations that have 
never been at war with one another, whose territories 
are not adjacent and whose past history has been until 
very recently one of uninterrupted friendship. If the 
one difficulty has been solved, shall the other, so much 
simpler one, long vex us ? 

Many statesmen from Seward to Roosevelt have 
looked westward to the Pacific Ocean and have visioned 
it as the scene of the world's greatest events in the 
immediate future. As international activities in the 
past have been concerned chiefly with war, it is not 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 259 

unnatural to think of the Pacific as the stage for a 
great conflict. 

But business men have learned that cooperation 
brings more success than cut-throat competition. The 
nations most interested in the Pacific are those whose 
shores are washed by its waters. The interests of 
America, Japan, and China are so diverse, and at the 
same time so interrelated, that if the three nations can 
work in harmony, each will profit vastly more than if 
each attempts to shape its future independently or in 
conflict with the others. 

America wishes the " Open Door " in China, Japan 
wishes the equivalent of a Monroe Doctrine for the 
East. If America supports Japan's contention, and 
Japan, America's, Europe will be forced to acquiesce, 
and peace in the Pacific will be assured. 

In a word, we must abandon, once and for all, the 
anti- Japanese policy inaugurated by Knox; more than 
that, we must abandon the laissez-faire indifferent policy 
that many advocate to-day. Rather our policy should be 
one of active cooperation, an alliance, if you will, though 
not necessarily one in the conventional military sense. 

As a first step toward such a consummation, an inter- 
national conference on Pacific problems might be called, 
to be participated in by accredited representatives from 
the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Australia, 



26o JAPANESE EXPANSION 

and perhaps Chile and Peru. The discussions of such 
a conference might deal with such subjects as : 

Trans-Pacific trade relations and tariff reciprocity. 

Immigration and naturalization. 

The supply of capital for the development of Oriental 
industry. 

Fiscal reform of China. 

Publicity bureaus, planned to facilitate the exchange 
of information between East and West, increase 
facilities for tourists, devise a basis for visiting or 
exchange professors and students, nullify canards 
and disseminate true information. 

The reports of such a conference might be made 
the basis for international conventions that would 
insure peace and prosperity on the Pacific for decades 
to come. 

But the skeptical ones, while granting of course the 
highest measure of disinterestedness on the part of the 
United States, will concede to Japan no such far-seeing 
motives. They believe that Japan is trying to supplant 
all the European aggressors in China and seize huge 
slices of Chinese territory for herself. And they point 
to results in South Manchuria and Korea and later in 
Kiao-Chau as confirmatory evidence. 

We have already discussed the essential difference 
between the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 261 

Korea and that of China proper. But let us assume 
that Japan does fulfill the prophecies of these critics and 
attempts to appropriate Chinese territory and admin- 
ister it as her own. How would it work out? 

We learn, for instance, that the Germans had de- 
veloped a considerable industry in strawbraid in the 
Kiao-Chau province, of which they were just about to 
reap the advantage, and that the Japanese have fallen 
heir to this industry. Of course the people who profit 
by such an industry, in the first instance, are the Chinese 
who make the strawbraid. The Japanese may take their 
profits also as entrepreneurs. Well and good. This is 
legitimate. But if they must charge off against the other 
side of their ledger the heavy cost of military occupation, 
these profits are going to dwindle to the vanishing point. 

The Chinese of course are easy to conquer in a military 
way. We can easily believe that if the occasion de- 
manded it, Japan might seize half the Empire and by 
quartering enough troops at strategic points might main- 
tain that condition, perhaps not indefinitely, but for a 
considerable length of time. Having done so, she must 
reap some very great economic advantage to compensate 
for the great expense. She could of course seize the nat- 
ural resources, the coal, iron, and copper, but she could 
hardly choose a more expensive and unprofitable way of 
acquiring them. Let us assume then that she would try 



262 JAPANESE EXPANSION 

to control the channels of trade, to give her own goods 
a clear field by excluding foreign competition. The 
easiest way to do this would be by a preferential tariff. 

This has been done before in various parts of the world 
(by the French in Madagascar, for instance), but never 
with a large and prosperous nation against the will of 
that nation. If Japanese goods already have a good 
market (cotton yarns, ior instance), they need no such 
bulwark to protect them; they beat their competitors 
in the open market. If, on the other hand, they are 
inferior in quality or higher in price, and the Chinese is 
prevented from buying in the most favorable market, — ■ 
and this is the only way in which it is conceivable that a 
military occupation could be made profitable,— then 
the Chinese would discover that he yvas being exploited 
in the interest of his enemy, and there is little question 
as to what he would do. 

He has, as a matter of fact, a far more effective 
weapon than any manufactured by Krupps. This is the 
boycott. Whether any other nation could successfully 
carry through a national boycott or not is hard to say. 
The Chinese are the only ones who have done so. And 
it is a weapon that they have employed with increasing 
frequency as their contact with foreign powers has 
grown more intimate and disagreeable. 

The long record of grievances against the United 



SOME GUESSES AS TO THE FUTURE 263 

States culminated in 1904, and the first great boycott 
was inaugurated against us. This lost us millions of 
dollars in trade and we have never recovered the old 
status. Japan, as well, has been the victim more than 
once. The Manchurian program, particularly the Muk- 
den- Antung Railway controversy, the affair of the Tatsu 
Maru, a Japanese ship that carried arms to the Chinese 
rebels, and numerous other subjects of difference aroused 
the national self -consciousness of the Chinese and kept a 
boycott going to the very great loss of the Japanese 
trade. Numerous other minor boycotts have been 
inaugurated in recent years, enough to show that the 
weapon is a very effective one, and one that the Chinese 
are ready to use. It is reported that a very active boy- 
cott was instituted in Shanghai against Japan on account 
of the recent " demands " made upon China by that 
nation (February, 1915) . It is significant that the most 
important and far-reaching of these boycotts have been 
based upon academic grounds, and moreover have 
originated, and have been maintained with greatest 
fervor, in Canton and the southern provinces, even the 
one due to the Manchurian controversies. 

Now it is manifestly impossible for even the wildest 
Japanese jingo to think of holding all the eighteen 
provinces of China, with their 407,000,000 inhabitants, 
by a military occupation. The most she could do would 



264 JAPANESE EXPANSION, 

be to hold some of the populous districts of the north or 
the Yang-tse Valley. If, however, the analogy of past 
events has any weight, such a condition would result 
in the most active boycott that the south and west have 
ever known. And Japan could not make enough from 
the conquered provinces to compensate the losses from 
the rest. 

But the whole thing is the dream of a madman. 
Japan's future success must be an industrial and com- 
mercial one. Her greatest, her most vital market is 
China. The tradesman does not try to stimulate busi- 
ness by affronting and antagonizing his prospective 
customers. 

More than this, the tradesman, if he be wise, knows 
that his greatest prosperity lies in the prosperity of 
his neighbors; that the green-grocer cannot buy of 
the baker unless he himself sells his own wares. As 
Japan looks to China for her future trade, more than to 
other parts of the world, as the Chinese trade is more 
vital to her than to other nations, so an impoverished 
and humiliated China must mean loss to her, whereas 
an independent and prosperous China would mean her 
own national success. These considerations are so 
obvious that we can hardly believe that Japan's future 
policy in China will take permanently any other direc- 
tion. 



INDEX 



Aggression, European in Orient, 

46. 
Aggressive warfare, Cost of, 198. 
Aguinaldo, 79. 
Ainu, 13. 
Alexieff, $7 

Alliance, Anglo-Japanese, 44. 
American assistance in Japan, 34. 
American policy in Philippines, 

62, 81. 
American Tobacco Co., 65. 
Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 44, 45. 
Annexation of Korea, 63. 
Art-objects, Japanese, 116. 
Assimilation of Japanese, 178. 
Australian Fleet, 152. 

Bacon, Francis, quoted, 10. 
Balance of Trade, 128. 
Biddle, Commodore, 17. 
Bilingual schools, 179. 
Birth rate in Japan, no. 
Boxer indemnity, 27. 
Boxer outbreak, 50. 
Boycott, Anti-American, 164. 
Boycott, Chinese, 132, 262. 
Brazil, Japanese in, 216. 
British Columbia, Oriental prob- 
lem, 156, 160. 
Budget, Japanese, 140. 

California, Asiatics in, 162. 
Camphor, 137. 

Capital, Lack in Philippines, 91. 
Capital, Need for, in Japan, 185. 
Cash remitted home by Japanese, 

142. 
China "awakening," 129. 
Breakup of, 49. 



26s 



Chinda, Viscount, 172. 
Chinese culture in Japan, 13. 

deported from Japan, 89. 

In Japanese banks, 9. 

In Manchuria, 222. 

markets, 130. 

Modem tendencies, 229. 
Chino- Japanese War, 43. 
Qan spirit, 14. ^ 
Cleveland, President, 253 
Commercializing Japanese art, 

116. 
Competition, Japanese, in Cali- 
fornia, 168, 
Competitors, Japanese as, 177. 
Conference, International, 259. 
Control of the seas, 97. 
Copper mines in British Co- 
lumbia, 158. 
Cotton, inthe Orient, 121. 
Customs receipts, 32. 

Debt, National, of Japan, 140. 
Deportation of Qiinese from 

Japan, 187. 
Dictation test, 151. 
Dilemma, Japanese, 215. 
'Disfranchisement of Japanese in 

B. C, 159. 
Dutch, Relations with, 15. 

Elgin tariff, 31. 

England's attitude toward U. S., 

249, 251. 
Etiquette, 20. 

European attitude, Japanese- 
American war, 211. 
Exclusion, Japanese, 191. 
League, 169. 



266 



INDEX 



Executive qualities of Japanese, 

"5. 
Exports, Japanese, 1:25. 
Extraterritoriality, 30. 

Factories in Japan, 113. 
Feudalism in Japan, 112. 
Filipino, Attitude toward Japan, 

85. 
traits, 80. 
Finances, Japanese, 134. 
Financing of war, 200. 
Fishing in British Columbia, 158. 
Fleet, Australian, 152. 
Foreign trade, Japanese, 119, 208. 
Formosa, Japanese colonization, 

104, 218. 
French problem in Canada, 178. 

Geary Act, 164 

"Gentleman's Agreement," 165 

Germans in Kiao-Chau, 261 

in U. S., 180. 
Germany in East Asia, 227. 
Gold reserve, 141. 
Government patronage in Japan, 

113. 
Grant, U. S., Tour of, 29. 
Gresham's Law, 168, 223. 
Gulick, Sidney, quoted, 192. 

Harris, Townsend, 21, 31. 

Hearing on Naval Affairs, 97. 

Heimin, 12. 

Hemp in Philippines, 88. 

Henry, Patrick, quoted, 248. 

Hobson, Mr., quoted, 3. 

"Holy Alliance," 236. 

Home production in Japan, 117. 

Immigration, Character of Amer- 
ican, 145. 
into Australia, 149. 
Indemnity, Levied by U. S., 25, 

27. 
Failure of Japanese, 60. 
Industrialism in Japan, iii 
Industrial revolution, 107. 



Inouye, Count, 39. 
Intercourse with Occident, 15. 
International conference, 259. 
Invasion, Japanese, 202. 
Irish in America, 252. 
Iwakura embassy, 33. 

Japan an agricultural country, 

108. 
Japan, Birth rate, no. 

Industrialism, in. 

Foreign trade, 119. 

Poverty of, 140 

Wealth of, 137. 
Japanese castes, 12. 

-Chinese trade, 132, 

clan spirit, 14. 

dishonesty, 9. 

etiquette, 20. 

factories, 113. 

feudalism, 112. 

finances, 134. 

in California, 165. 

in Philippines, 103. 

Origin of, 11. 

proficiency in arms, 50. 

-Russian entente, 167. 

workmen, 115. 
Juridical persons, 186. 
Justice, sense of, in Oriental, 27. 

Kaempfer, quoted, 19 
Kiao-Chau, 47, 51, 228. 
Kin-chau-Aigun Railway, 68. 
Knox, P. Q., 64, 67. 
Komagata Maru, 161. 
Korea, Annexation, 63. 

Early relations with Japan, 42. 

Japanese immigration into, 
219. 

Labor in Philippines, 92. 
Land ownership by Japanese in 
U. S., 169. 
in Japan, 186. 
Lea, Homer, 4. 
Legaspi, Miguil de, 84. 
Literacy test in Australia, 150. 



INDEX 



267 



Maine, blown up, 7. 
McKinley, quoted, 62. 
Manchuria, Area and population 
of, 221. 
Japanese in, 65. 
Mann, James R., quoted, 2. 
Market, China as a, 130. 
Mastery of the Pacific, 96. 
Maximilian, 237. 
Missionaries in Japan, 35. 
Monopolies, Government, 136. 
Monroe Doctrine, 232. 

Neutralization scheme (Knox's"), 

67. 
New Orleans lynchings, 26. 

Occident, Intercourse with, 15. 
Oil, Kerosene, 125, 
Okuma, Failure of, 40. 
Open Door, 245. 
Ordinance No 352, 188, 173, 

Pacific, Problem of, 75. 
Panama Canal, 124. 
Pearson, Dr., quoted, 155. 
Peasantry, Character of Jap- 
anese, 177. 
Perry, Commodore, 16, 21. 
Peru, Japanese in, 217. 
Philippines, Cost to U. S., 83. 

History, 84. 

Japanese invasion of, 203, 206. 

Needs, 90. 

Japanese in, 103. 

Peoples of, 84. 

Protectorate for, loi. 

Resources, 87. 

Roads in, 92. 

Sale of, loi. 

Spanish policy in, yy. 

Tariff of, 94. 
Population of North Australia, 

155. 
■Port Arthur, 43, 46, 49. 
Portsmouth treaty, 224. 
iProfit for Japanese in Philip- 
pines, 105. 



Retrocession of Port Arthur, 

.46. 
Rice, Imported into Philippines, 
90. 
Increased cost in Japan, 109, 
138. 
Richardson, Cut down, 24. 
Riots, Anti-Chinese, 164. 
Japanese in British Columbia, 

T, ^59- 

Russia in East Asia, 47, 226. 

in Manchuria, 53. 
Russian- Japanese entente, 70. 

-Japanese war, 58. 

St. Louis Fair, Chinese at, 164. 

Salt monopoly, 136. 

Sand-lot agitation, 163. 

Shimonoseki affair, 24. 

Shipping, Japanese, 134. 

Shizoku, 12. 

Silk, Japanese, 127. 

South Africa, Orientals in, 146. 

South America, Japanese in, 217. 

Spanish policy in Philippines, 77. 

Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 183. 

Standard Oil Co., 65. 

Straw matting, 118. 

Subsidies for Japanese ships, 96. 

Successful wars, 44. 

Sugar in Philippines, 89. 

Superficies, 186. 

Tariff, 31, 135. 

in Philippines, 94. 
Tax, Land, 134. 

Income, 135. 
Tea in Japan, 126. 
Tientsin affair, 26. 
Tobacco in Philippines, 89. 

monopoly in Japan, 136. 
Togo, Admiral, quoted, i. 
Tourist disbursements, 128. 
Toys, Japanese trade in, 126. 
Trade balance, 128 

Japanese, 119 

with China, 243. 



268 



INDEX 



Tradesmen, Status of, in Japan, 
28. 

Uchida, Baron, quoted, 174. 

Venezuela incident, 253. 
von Billow, quoted, 48. 
von Tirpitz, quoted, i. 

Wages of Japanese workmen, 

114. 
War, Chances of, 194. 
Russo-Japanese, 58. 
Ward, Premier, quoted, 153. 



Wealth of Japan, 137. 
Webb Act, 171. 
Wei-Hai-Wei, 49. 
Wheat in Japan, no. 
White Australia doctrine, 148. 
Wood, General, quoted, 5. 
Workmen, Japanese, 115. 
Worcester, Dean C, quoted, 76, 
82. 

Xavier, St. Francis, 15. 

Yellow peril, 45, 55, 95. 



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universal peace. Written with Mr. Hobson's usual 
vivacity and force of argument, the book urges a 
federation of the world's nations, based on a desire 
for international harmony and assured by a plan of 
forced arbitration and appeal to an international 
congress and executive. He rests his case on the 
needs and demands of the great majority of people, 
especially those of the working classes, and he aims 
well-deserved blows at military governments and the 
methods of modern democracy. Mr. Hobson's book 
is with the trend of the times — for the overthrow of 
militarism and the extension of the influence of the 
democratic ideal. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

FnbliBhers 64-66 Fiftli Avenue New Tork 



American Municipal Progress 

By CHARLES ZUEBLIN 

Neub Edition, Entirely Rewritten and Greatly Enlarged 

Professor Zueblin's work has a message for all who live in 
either a great metropolis or a small, progressive town. It is 
not so much a new and revised edition of Mr. Zueblin's earlier 
work as it is a new volume. The development of the cities and 
the growth of the social conscience in the past decade have 
made necessary a larger treatment, and the author, although 
using the earlier work as a nucleus for the new, has almost 
doubled its pages, and at the same time has added to its value 
with many illustrations. 

The book takes up in detail such problems as publi« utilities, 
schools, libraries, children's playgrounds, parks, public baths 
and public gymnasiums ; also such questions as those of rapid 
transit, sanitation and the care of streets ; the latest experiments 
in municipal ownership and municipal administration are re- 
corded. The discussion is from the standpoint of public welfare, 
and is based on repeated personal investigations in the leading 
cities of the United States. Despite its large interest for the 
general reader, its comprehensiveness makes it valuable to the 
research student as well, and its exhaustive bibliography is in- 
valuable to the specialist. The work is unique and will be 
found a complete guide in many unfamiliar paths. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

FublislierB 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



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